From Where I Sit

Listen, I just got off the phone with my boyhood chum Lenny. We don’t speak too frequently but when we do we cover it all, from hair loss to The Honeymooners, and from baseball to Bush. Still, it’s always a surprise when we finally get off the phone and I realize that two or three hours have passed! And so it’s now very late (Don’t believe those times you see posted on each of these blogs. I always just set them for around 11:30.) and it’s really time for me to go to bed.

And that is why tonight’s blog will be a quiz that I’ve been thinking about springing on you guys for a while now. I suspect it will be short, fairly easy to write, and all the questions and answers are right here in front of me. This concept had its genesis when I found myself staring straight ahead one night as I was organizing my thoughts (such as they are) and preparing to write my nightly gem. I began to look at all the junk I’ve accumulated in my office and figured I had better do a column about it, as I’m sure some worshipful fan will one day want to recreate my workspace as part of The Leonard Stegmann Historic Museum. And we certainly want it to be authentic.

Then I said the hell with it, let’s just make it into a quiz! Have you ever wondered in what type of environment are these delightful literary compositions composed each night? Or what trinkets and knick-knacks surround me as my fingers dance gracefully over the keyboard? Exactly what sort of lunatic is writing this tripe anyway and is his office decorated with religious items or pornography? Is it cluttered with great piles of second-hand books or as barren and sterile as a hospital waiting room?

You think you know? Let’s find out. Below are seven questions about my workspace decorations. Take your best guess and if you get them all right maybe I’ll let you visit my actual office. No I won’t, I’m just kidding. Are you nuts?

1. If I turn my head slightly to the left I can see photographic images of all of these EXCEPT:
a. A topless Hawaiian girl
b. Rachael Ray
c. My wife next to Goofy at Disney World
d. My turtle Ellsworth

2. If I face directly to my left I face a wall on which hangs all of these EXCEPT:
a. A Beatles calendar
b. A map of the world
c. A photoshop picture of Bush in handcuffs
d. A voodoo doll from New Orleans

3. If I look at the bookshelf on my right I will see it contains all of these EXCEPT:
a. A book called On Writing Well, obviously unread.
b. A framed photo of Muttsie, my childhood pet.
c. A framed photo of Neil Young and Paul McCartney.
d. Nine copies of my book, obviously unsold.

4. Hanging directly in front of me on my desk is a photocopy of a comic strip showing the first appearance of which popular character?
a. Popeye.
b. Hobbes, from Calvin and Hobbes
c. Uncle Duke, from Doonesbury
d. Betty Boop

5. Look at all this crap on the floor! All these things are just lying there EXCEPT:
a. Exactly 67 books.
b. Two guitars
c. A brassiere
d. A three-foot tall stuffed Squidward

6. Eyes directly ahead again and I see the only fortune cookie fortune that I have bothered to save in well over a decade. What does it say?
a. You will receive an unexpected treasure within a year’s time.
b. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.
c. A long life is good, a good life is better.
d. Any idiot can write a blog.

7. If I turn my head around (Ow, that hurts my neck!) I see the wall behind me, on which hangs all of the following EXCEPT:
a. A boomerang from Australia
b. A wooden mask from Africa
c. A cannibal fork from Fiji
d. A painted wooden parrot from Brazil


Fascinating, huh? OK, let’s see how you did!

ANSWERS:
1. Well, my parents went to Hawaii in 1978 and brought me back a calendar featuring topless Hawaiian girls, and I’ve reordered it every year since. I bet the girls from that first calendar are getting a bit raggedy by now, eh? Sadly I don’t have a picture of my turtle Ellsworth up there, though. I may just have to change that.

2. You all know I’m a huge Beatles fan, but alas there is no Beatles calendar. Sure I loved those guys but I’m afraid the topless Hawaiian girls still win out every year.

3. Muttsie was a great little dog who ran away thirty years ago. I’m still waiting for her to come back. I just know she will. But nope, no photo.

4. Doonesbury and Calvin and Hobbes are two of my favorite strips, but the answer is Popeye. And I’d only hang a Betty Boop cartoon if I were gay.

5. Sadly there is a three-foot Squidward but there is no brassiere. Ten years ago there may well have been. Maybe even your sister’s. And, by the way, why is the sight of your own wife’s bra in the hamper just regular old underwear while the sight of another woman’s bra in a laundry basket an incredibly erotic experience? I’m just asking questions here.

6. Skepticism is the first step toward truth. What, you don’t believe that? Good! You’re on your way!

7. I’ve never been to Brazil but I’d love to go there next. I might need a traveling partner for this one—my wife says there are too many snakes down there.

SCORING:

1-3 Correct. You really need to learn more about me. Are you sure you’re reading this blog every day?

4-6 Correct: You probably have many of the same items in your own cluttered little office. We’re much alike. You sick bastard.

7 Correct: If you ever break into my house again when I’m not here I’m calling the cops!

Miller's Tale

Back when I was doing the technical stuff in order to put this blog together I had to pick a sub-heading to go under my name up there. Well, I was in a hurry to get this thing up and running so I just typed in the first thing that popped into my head. In fact I was just going to type out the slogan but I actually had to go to my blog to check to see exactly what it said. “I could be wrong…but I doubt it.” It’s a line that we’ve all heard before and I honestly just threw it up there thinking I’d replace it when I came up with something better. Which I obviously haven’t

But boy I sure wasn’t wrong about Dennis Miller! From the very first time I heard a promo for his MSNBC show I knew why he was there and what would happen. The only thing I didn’t get right was how unfunny the show would be.

I’ve always enjoyed Dennis Miller. I liked him on Saturday Night Live and I watched his HBO program religiously. I didn’t watch him on Monday Night Football, but that’s only because I no longer watch football. (But that’s a tale for another day.) In truth I was happy when I heard that he would have yet another new show. I was looking forward to it.

From the first time I heard a promo for Miller’s new show I immediately knew that something didn’t smell right. I remember hearing a clip on the radio and Miller was talking about the new program. He was saying something along the lines that he would give Bush credit when he deserved it. I thought he was making a joke. After all, making fun of a sitting president is what comics have always done, going all the way back to Will Rogers. I honestly didn’t know Miller’s politics, but I knew that during the years I had watched him I don’t ever remember getting pissed off. And besides, even if Miller wasn’t making a joke, why would this praise of Bush be among the first things he said about his new show? No, it didn’t smell right at all.

OK, so he was going to give Bush credit when he did something right. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. Besides, how often was that going to happen anyway? So January 2004 rolled around, the show began and I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Miller had somehow become a shameless shill for the Bush administration! If I had a buck for every time Miller said, “I’m a Bush guy,” I’d be slurping pina coladas and native girls in Tahiti instead of wasting my nights staring bleary-eyed into this barely-functioning computer screen.

To make matters worse the show was incredibly unfunny. For this to happen on a Dennis Miller show was inconceivable to me. To be fair (just this once) I seldom laugh at someone who is spewing opinions that I find abhorrent. Instead I get angry and my stomach twists into a knot. But there were non-political jokes on the show as well, and most of them weren’t funny either. It seemed that the spark that had made Dennis Miller what he was had disappeared. The final insult was when Miller, who always fancied himself as a sort of intellectual social satirist, began working with a chimp! Jerry Lewis, yes. The Stooges, of course. Even Ted Bessel. (See: Me and the Chimp, Sitcom, CBS 1972) But Dennis “The Human Thesaurus” Miller spending each night talking to a monkey? Uh-oh.

I’ll give myself a slight pat on the back here, because it didn’t take long for me to realize what was going on. Dennis Miller was given that show in January 2004 for one reason: There was an election in November 2004. His show would be a one-hour Bush campaign spot that would air four nights a week right up until Election Day. Miller’s job would be to show the young, hip folks out there that it was OK to support Bush. And like the loyal party lackey that the once-satiric Miller had become, he did just that. Night after night. And what do you know, it worked! Bush won! Would he have won without Miller’s show? Probably, but who can say? Having that one-hour ass-kissing session every night certainly didn’t hurt.

I’ll give myself another pat on the back for predicting that once the election was over for Bush, win or lose, Miller’s usefulness would be at an end and so would his show. Now I’d be lying if I said I had watched like a hawk as this scenario played itself out. It’s actually only been a couple of weeks since I began to wonder, “Hey, what ever happened to that Dennis Miller show?” I truly didn’t know if it had been cancelled or if it was on some sort of seasonal hiatus. So I did the research and found out the show was dumped in May.

So let’s review: Popular, successful, hip, “thinking man’s” comedian begins a new show ten months before the presidential election. He spends every night raving about the glorious wonders of the president, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The president is re-elected and Miller’s show is cancelled four months after the inauguration. Well, like the comedians like to say, timing is everything.

And now I’m going to give myself one final pat on the back. I began writing this daily blog with a promise to myself that I would not turn it into a blunt instrument with which to bash Bush. And, except for the occasional snide remark, I’ve pretty much kept to that promise. I don’t try to change people’s minds about Bush for the same reason I don’t try to teach my turtle to tap-dance: It’s a waste of time. In all honesty I don’t know if my long-stated predictions about the coming crash and burn of this criminal presidency has any basis in reality or is just wishful thinking.

But Dennis Miller, right or wrong, has hitched his wagon to Bush’s tin-plated star. Whether it was to help his sagging show biz career or to lay the groundwork for his own rumored political career, only time will tell. It’s just that sometimes what you think is a star turns out to be just a meteorite that is crashing to the Earth. And even though he made his choice I still can’t help but feel a little sorry for Dennis Miller. He used to be pretty funny, you know.

Three Card Monte: The Extended Leonard Edition

I guess everybody has some regrets in their life, but I have to admit that on the rare occasions that I think about such things very few come to mind. Oh sure, there was that stock I sold at $70 (because “it’s not doing anything”) which immediately took off like a rocket to peak at $470 a share. And there was that time with the 18-year-old Korea girl at the nude beach when I could have—well you don’t want to hear about that, do you?

We can however, if we set the way-back machine to my elementary school years, find two or three events that I’d admit still stick in my craw, if I knew what a craw was. So I’m going to use these delightful little tales that have been culled from my twisted youth to create a seemingly interminable and outrageously egocentric variation of our oh-so-popular game, Three Card Monte.

Regular readers recall that in Three Card Monte I present three stories, two of which are true and one that is total baloney. Today I’m going to tell you three stories that took place when I was an apple-cheeked elementary school lad, long before life bludgeoned me into this cynical reprobate who spends all his nights hunched over a keyboard typing out mindless drivel instead of slurping champagne from the shoes of women with unlimited resources and questionable morals.

All of the stories below are true. They really happened, except for the endings. In two of these tales I did not stand up and defend myself, but sat there like the sniveling little toad that I was. One of the stories, however, is completely true, including the ending. Yes, for a few brief shining moments long ago I actually grew a temporary spine, rented some balls and spoke up for myself. Just that once, of course.

Your job is to pick out the story where the closing dialogue is true and I actually did stand up for myself.. “What’s so fun about that?’ you may well be asking. Well, true, it’s not a naked bobsled ride with the Olsen Twins, but what else have you got to do right now? Work?


STORY A

This took place when I was in second grade. We had a substitute teacher that day and she had given us an assignment. “I want you each to write an essay,” this old bag of about 28 had said, “and title it Last Night at Dinner.”

Well I decided to write an incredibly clever (and really, how could it be anything but?) story about a king and how nearly all of his men had been killed. And so when it came time to sit down for the evening meal he found that there was only one of his men remaining. This, then, was the “Last Knight at Dinner.” Get it? Get it?

Well the teacher sure didn’t. “This is a nice story,” the ignoramus said, but it has nothing to do with the assignment I gave, which was At Dinner Last Night. Now I had her.
“No, the assignment you gave was Last Night at Dinner. And this story is telling about the last knight at dinner. Knight, like in the olden days.”
No exaggeration it took a full fifteen minutes of explaining and arguing with this bim but it was worth it when the light finally, finally clicked on in her unnaturally thick cranium.
“Oh, now I get it. He was the Last Knight at Dinner. Very good. B-plus.”
What are you gonna do?


STORY B

This happened about three years later with another writing instructor. (Aside: With all this writer training you’d think I could produce something on a higher level than this daily pile of gibberish. You’d be wrong.) This instructor bounced around the district in a seemingly random manner to teach creative writing to the various classes. Looking back I can now see he was probably an unemployed English teacher who had a friend in administration, but at the time we kids thought he was a pretty big deal.

Anyway, I think this time we were allowed to write a story about anything we wanted and so I wrote a clever (and really, how could it be anything but?) tale called The Termites Declare War! I really only remember two things about this work of art, besides the title. One, the termites decide to use leaves as boats and end up being washed down the sewer (Pretty existential for a ten-year-old, eh?) and two, the teacher raved over my story as if I had single-handedly unlocked the secrets of the Rosetta Stone.

A few weeks later the wandering instructor was back and again we were asked, (well, told) to write a story. An hour later and three seats over the teacher was gushing over one of my fellow students and telling him how creative he was. The reason? The student had just finished writing a story called The Termites Declare War, Part II ! The little bastard had written a sequel. To my story! He was piggybacking on my original and the teacher, without even reading it, was telling him how wonderful he was. And there the little twerp sat (And believe me, over forty years later I can still remember this fucker’s name. I’ll keep it to myself, though. He might be a lawyer. Or want to buy a copy of my book) sucking in the praise, my praise, like gasoline into a Hummer.

“You’re really very talented,” the teacher was saying. Finally I could stand no more.
“Yeah, especially since I wrote the first one, “ I sneered.
“Oh, you wrote it? Oh well, then you’re very talented. You,” he said, turning to the thief, “are just a copy cat.”
Score!


STORY C

This tale does not take place in school but rather on a Saturday during Catechism class, possibly the cruelest brainwashing method ever devised. Here you have a ten-year-old kid who is forced to go to school five days a week and then to church on Sunday. (Well, you didn’t have to go to church. Unless, of course, you wanted to avoid burning in the fiery pits of Hell for all eternity.) And that left Saturday. We’ve got the other days covered, but what can we do to fuck up this kid’s Saturday? I’ve got it!

And so for about ninety minutes each Saturday we went to what was referred to as “religious instructions,” boring-ass classes that were usually taught by nuns, especially in the lower grades. In this one particular year we had a sister whose teaching style was to have kids stand up and be quizzed when they felt they had learned (ie. memorized) the answers to all the questions in a chapter of the catechism. For example, there might be ten questions in Chapter One, you know the “Who Made You?” and “Why Did God Make You?” sort of crap. Holy shit! As I’m writing these I realize that I still know all the answers word for word! Wow, call it brainwashing if you want, but apparently it works. Can’t we use these nuns over in Abu Ghraib or something?

So if you got the answers to all the questions correct you would get a gold star. Now I probably didn’t enjoy memorizing that nonsense any more than the next kid, but the thought of accumulating a catechism filled with gold stars really appealed to my competitive nature. (I guess I had one back then.) So each week I came prepared, ready to answer my questions and be rewarded with the coveted gold star.

Well, we must have been about halfway through the school year when the nun (I’m sorry I don’t recall these people’s names, but it was a long time ago. I think this chick was Sister Mary-Something-or-Other. Anyway, that’s a pretty safe guess.) came in one Saturday morning with what can only be described as a huge bug up her sanctified ass. Who knows what was wrong? The easy answer would be to trace her grouchy attitude back to that pesky vow of chastity she took, but we don’t know that for sure.

The good sister was giving the class a thorough reaming (don’t even) about how far behind we were in learning (memorizing) our catechism.
“I want to know right now,” she barked, “how many of you have earned three stars?”
A few kids raised their hands.
“Four?”
A few more. And so she proceeded until she got to the number nine and found that hands were no longer being raised. And then, to my horror, she stopped.
“OK you people are going to have to work harder at getting those gold stars.”
“Sister?” I ventured as I shyly raised my hand.
“Yes, what is it?” she snapped.
“You didn’t get to my number. I have fourteen stars.”
“Fourteen? Let me see your catechism!”

And after she had looked through it she gave the class another speech, this time basically telling my hapless fellow students how clever (and really, how could I be anything but?) I was and if they worked as hard as I did they too could be awarded fourteen stars. Suddenly the entire class started to applaud as I stood there, half embarrassed and half as proud as could be.


Whew! This trip down memory lane might not have meant much to you, but it’s been terrific therapy for me. Cathartic. So what do you think? In a better world all three of these stories would have ended exactly as written above. Yet only one did. Which one?

The Aristocrats--Take the Kids!

Today is the toughest day of the year for the little ones. Yes, it’s Back to School Day! What just a few short months ago seemed like a summer without end, spreading before them with the promise of unlimited sunshine and fun, has now come to a cruel and itchy-clothed stop. It sure can be tough to be a kid.

Today I found a great way to perhaps ease the pain a bit for your little darlings. Next weekend take them to see that wonderful new movie that is quickly becoming the children’s sleeper hit of the summer: The Aristocrats.

This delightful film of course, is the long awaited sequel to Disney’s 1970’s animation classic, The Aristocats and I’m happy to report that it retains all of the charm, humor and snappy music of the original, while adding the visually stunning, eye-popping animation of today’s technology. It might be a little hard to find this gem in a nearby theater, but check around. It’s sure to be a heart-warming treat for you and your children and is well worth the effort. It might even take away some of the sting of returning to school!

There, that will teach them. Too many of you whiners out there have been complaining about the sometimes-excessive length of my blogs and some of you, I suspect, are only reading the first few paragraphs. Well, I want to personally thank those of you who have continued this far. You’re the ones who are now in on the joke: The Aristocrats, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with Disney’s The Aristocats. One is a cute animated tale about kittens in 1910 Paris, and the other is a piece of filth.

But a funny piece of filth. The Aristocrats contains, arguably, some of the foulest language heard in any movie in history, and that may well include porn. If you are offended by “dirty” words, then you should probably stay home and watch The 700 Club. Maybe you can even send in a check to their Assassination Fund. But if you’re like me, and I know I am, then check out this film.

Real quick, in case you live under a rock or in Guantanamo (or under a rock in Guantanamo) The Aristocrats is a movie that features dozens of comics giving their take on a legendary and incredibly obscene joke that supposedly dates back to Vaudeville days. The joke, as several of the comics point out, is not particularly funny, but the humor is all in the creating and telling.

Nah, I’m not going to get into any of the verbal specifics here. I want it to be a surprise for you, and besides, my Mom reads this column, you know. I’m also not even going to rant about the bizarre, down-the-rabbit-hole morality of the religious right. I’ll just say that I enjoyed seeing all those comics in one movie and getting an inside glimpse into their creative process. The movie made me laugh and it also made me nostalgic for my own glorious days as a stand-up. And I do mean “days”: all two of them.

So unclench a bit and go check out The Aristocrats. And if you happen to stumble upon one of those parents who is taking his kids because he chose to only read the first three paragraphs of this column, please don’t tip him off. These people must be taught.

The Cranky Blues

Whoops, sorry I’m late but I was just ready to turn off the TV when PBS began showing a concert with The Moody Blues. (And if you think I’m one of those pompous snoots who claims to watch television, but “only PBS” you haven’t been reading this blog very long. I watch it all, baby. Even PBS when I get desperate enough.)

Naturally I remained glued to my chair for the entire concert. I sat there mesmerized by full-orchestra renditions of Nights in White Satin, Isn’t Life Strange?, Question and of course Tuesday Afternoon. (And yes, I'm quite aware that the actual title of that last one is The Afternoon: Forever Tuesday, you anal-retentive aging hippie burnout.) Somewhere during the show I reflected on how sad it was that this group had produced all this beautiful music and today it would be difficult to find a person under forty who could name even one of their hits. Then I watched a little more and thought, “Forget that, it’s not sad at all!”

The Moody Blues music is our music. Do you ever hear someone say, “Oh my child/grandchild just loves the Beatles!” Well, screw him! Who asked him to? The Beatles are ours. Tell the little punk to go find his own music. Tell him to go enjoy that rap stuff; listen to M&M or whatever the hell his name is. The Beatles are spoken for. As are The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Kinks, The Who and a bunch of other classic bands that I guarantee the little bastard has never even heard of, like the Freddy and the Dreamers and Herman’s Hermits and the fucking Dave Clark Five!

The Rolling Stones tour every few years and every few years the snide remarks about their age reappear. This time around some person was clever enough to calculate that their combined ages added up to 240 years, or something. Ho-ho! What a wit! Yeah, and the combined age of the musicians in the Boston Symphony is 2,384. So what? Listen, people like the Rolling Stones and Neil Young and the Who created some of the best music of a glorious era, and if they want keep it alive for as long as possible I say grab a guitar and a walker and go for it! If Tony Bennett can still sing San Francisco at 104 years old and Sinatra can tour until he’s pronounced legally dead, then why can’t the giants of the Rock Era do the same? And who do you think is going to be remembered fifty years from now, The Rolling Stones or the guy who added up their ages?

So there on my TV screen were the Moody Blues, sixty, balding, gray, and cranking out The Story in Your Eyes as if they had just written it yesterday. What are most other guys doing in their sixties, using a capful of Maalox to wash down a Viagra? And so if you’re too young to remember The Moody Blues, The Jefferson Airplane or The Lovin’ Spoonful, that’s OK. Like my wife you may simply have grown up in the wrong musical era. It’s not your fault. I’ll just sit here and watch The Moody Blues while you go in the other room and enjoy your scratchy old Foreigner and Styx albums. You poor, poor soul.

The American Ending

Spoiler Alert: Movie Endings Are Given Away In This Column!

I was watching a flick with my wife the other night. It was that one with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace, where Topher plays Quaid’s boss. OK, give me a minute here. In Good Company, yeah that’s it! Pretty good film I thought, and my wife liked it too. I think she was a little disappointed at the end though, because the girl and guy didn’t stay together. (Didn’t I just give you a spoiler warning?) I found it refreshing that this film didn’t end like every single other movie out there. It didn’t have what my pal Queenie calls an “American Ending.”

Now I can’t say for sure whether American films have a larger percentage of happy endings than say Indian or French or Swedish films (OK, certainly more than Swedish films) but sometimes it just gets so incredibly predictable and boring that you feel as if you’re seeing the same film over and over again.

Listen, I know why they do this. Studios want to make money. And who’s to say that’s wrong? If you weren’t such a loser and actually had a million dollars to invest in a movie, would you want to end it with Harry Potter flying on a broomstick and smashing face-first into the castle wall? If it meant less money in your pocket would you want the Bad News Bears to die in fiery plane crash? Would you want Adam Sandler to be crushed by a careening, out of control cement truck? OK, that last one might be worth it.

No, we like nice tidy, happy endings, don’t we? Are why not? The real world is horrible enough, so why can’t we go to the movies just to escape for a couple of hours? Sure, but here’s my gripe, and you just knew I had one.

Exhibit A : In 1988 French director George Sluizer directed a movie called Spoorloos, about a man’s search for his kidnapped wife. It turns out the wife had been buried alive by some maniac and the hero spends the entire film trying to find her. But you know what? The poor bastard never does and the wife dies. (Did you think I was done giving away endings? You sap.) Not particularly cheery, to be sure, but a very powerful film.

OK, fast-forward five years and the very same director makes an American version of the film and calls it The Vanishing. Now he’s got big-time movie star Jeff Bridges playing the husband and you don’t think American audiences are going to pay ten bucks a ticket plus twenty more for popcorn, candy and soda just to sit there and watch the macho Mr. Bridges let his poor wife suffocate, do you? ‘Course not. He finds her in the end, digs her up and everybody leaves the theater bloated and happy. These two films alone present, I think, some strong evidence that the American Ending may well be an aptly named phenomenon, just as my chum Queenie has always suspected.

What bugs me is when films that may have otherwise been great were turned mediocre because a studio or a sponsor or an investor had obviously insisted on an American Ending. I recently saw a prime example of this when watching a made-for-television movie called Oil Storm. It was a fake but realistic documentary that used actual news footage to tell the story of a future oil crisis in the United States. It showed a series of fictitious events, such as a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, which led to an extreme oil crisis. One particularly gripping scene depicted an emergency shipment of oil from Russian that was halfway to the U.S. when it suddenly changed direction. The ships were now headed to China, which had offered a higher price for the oil! I tell you, this was intelligent, edge of your seat writing.

Back at home all hell was breaking loose. The price of gasoline had risen above eight dollars a gallon (Only about 25% higher than current Euro prices, by the way.) and the country was in a panic. It looked like the end of the world, or at least of the U.S. And then, in the last fifteen minutes, everything got fixed. The Russian oil ships again changed direction, the crisis in Saudi Arabia was resolved, the refineries on the Gulf of Mexico were repaired and once again the birds sang and the sun shone through the smoggy skies as a stern-voiced announcer intoned that the crisis was over but America had learned its lesson. Hooray! What colossal bullshit! This had been a pretty gripping movie for nearly two hours and now they had spoiled it with that namby-pamby ending. But I’ve seen worse.

In case you couldn’t tell, I did minimal research for this article. I’m just basing it on movies that have stuck in my head because I remember them being destroyed by the American Ending. Currently my all-time champ is a movie called Matchstick Men, starring Nicholas Cage. This film was well on its way to becoming one of my favorite movies ever, and then they nailed on this incredibly bogus conclusion. I swear it reminded me of those do-gooders who want to put a pair of Bermuda shorts on Michelangelo’s David. The movie had a perfect ending in place, a perfect ending I tell you! I never saw it coming! And then that graphic “One Year Later” came up and sucked the life right out of it.

I was so sure that this was not what the writer had originally intended that I bought and read the book. Of course I was right. (And no, I never get tired of it.) The book ended right where it should have, and obviously some Hollywood suit decided to tack on a sappy, hopeful ending just to make a few million bucks more. I’ve often wanted to ask a writer how it feels to have your book mutilated in this way. I suspect his answer would be something like, “Well, at least the check cleared.” I know mine would be.

You know what, I’m not even going to spoil this one for you. If you haven’t seen it, be sure and rent Matchstick Men. Even with that vomit-inducing ending it’s still fun to watch. What I recommend you do is turn off the TV immediately after the words “One Year Later” pop up on the screen. Then you will have seen an excellent film with a truly socko ending, the way the writer intended. Ah, but you won’t listen. You’ll sit there and watch that crappy epilogue, won’t you? Why do I even bother? And as long as I've got your attention: Rosebud was a sled! Ha!

You're Fired!

Gee, I feel so fortunate that I can freely use that phrase as my title because that pompous ass Trump wasn’t allowed to copyright it. I was talking to my friend The Shadow Dancer today (Well, actually we were e-mailing. Who talks anymore?) and I mentioned that I had spent three years of my life working in an adult bookstore in San Diego.

She was apparently intrigued and said she wanted to hear (or rather, read) more about it. It’s been quite some time since I’ve even thought about that old job, but I easily recalled some of the details, specifically the reason I was attracted to the job in the first place. Like most of us I needed some money coming in, but I really didn’t want to get all caught up in the responsibilities and pressures of an actual job. At the adult bookstore I started work at 3:30 in the afternoon and by 4:00 I had finished the necessary shift paperwork, made myself a pot of coffee and eased back in my chair to enjoy another exciting episode of The Rockford Files.

The rest of the shift was usually quite slow and I used the time to read books (no, not those books) or to write letters. All this luxury plus I got $4.00 an hour besides! All in all, it was a very serene existence. Then, after I had been there for about three years, two (or more accurately, five) events happened and I realized that it was finally time to move on. First came the day I found myself putting batteries into a giant vibrating rubber thumb in order to show two Arab lads how it worked. “I’m a college graduate, for Chrissakes,” I thought to myself. And second (and third and fourth and fifth) I was held up at gunpoint on four separate occasions. See ya!

Thinking about this job reminded me about the first job I had working in an adult bookstore. It only lasted a few months, but turned out to be quite memorable. You see, it is the only job I’ve ever had (And I’ve had plenty!) from which I got fired.

It all began when some money came up missing from the floor safe where we dropped our daily deposits. I can’t say for sure, but I think the amount was about $18. A written notice was given to all the employees that they would be required to take a polygraph test in an attempt to catch the thief.

First off, do I really have to tell you that I didn’t take that money? How dare you even suspect me! Despite my innocence I announced that I would refuse to take the polygraph. You know how I get. “I have my rights, you can’t force someone to take a lie detector test, it goes against my principles, blah-blah-blah.” Of course when I gave this impassioned speech to my boss he simply informed me if I didn’t take the test I would be fired.

Once I was strapped into the chair the polygraph test began. I answered all the questions honestly, and when I went over the results with the examiner I knew something was up. He circled some of the squiggly lines on that long sheet of paper and methodically began to explain that these were revealing and incriminating blips in my responses. This, according to him, was where I hadn’t told the truth. Frankly, I could barely perceive any difference in the peaks he circled and the others on the paper, but at this point it didn’t matter. Because now I knew.

I was, of course, the only person on Earth who knew the truth: I hadn’t taken the money. Therefore anything that indicated that I had was clearly bogus. It dawned on me that this guy was not using the polygraph as proof of my guilt, but rather as a tool to hopefully extract a confession. And I told him as much, but not in so many words.

“Your machine is bullshit,” I said in that diplomatic and lovable way of mine.
“Look at this ridge right here,” he ventured.
“A polygraph isn’t even admissible as evidence in court!” I must have struck a nerve with that one.
“It’s not? It’s not? I’m using it in a case tomorrow!” He was getting a little heated.
“I’m going to lose my job over this,” I explained.
“It’s better than spending five years in prison,” he threatened.

So here it was. He wanted the confession so bad he could taste it, and he was implying that if only I would admit to taking the $18 I could avoid a possible lengthy term in the stone lonely. It was about this time I bid him a fond adieu.

When I next spoke to my boss I again told him that I hadn’t taken the money and he told me I was fired. I wasn’t particularly upset about loosing this crappy but the reason for my termination bothered me no end. The final stake in my heart was when my boss looked me straight in the eye and said, “I think you took the money.”

Since we’re dealing with the truth here, I’m compelled to admit that I have actually heard the words, “You’re fired!” one other time in my glorious employment history. I was working at a convenience store/gas station (Golly, I’ve had some delightful jobs!) and apparently I had forgotten once or twice to set the purchase amount on those old-timey credit card thingies before imprinting the card. The owner of the station explained that each time I did that it cost him the amount of the purchase (which I had mistakenly registered as $0.00—heh-heh) and that I was fired. The truth was I did have a lousy attitude at that job, but when I went into the owner’s office and performed my smiling tap-dance routine pleading my case he made his only real mistake: he let me stay.

We all know it's a pretty bad feeling to be accused of something when you actually are guilty, but there’s a special kind of frustration that comes when you’re accused of a crime of which you are not guilty. You can rant and scream and shake your fist at the sky, but at least some people will always believe that you are guilty. It bugs me to this day that somewhere out there is an now-aged dirty bookstore owner who still believes that nearly thirty years ago I stole $18 of his money. The man who is falsely accused exhibits a very specific brand of outrage, and I’m going to teach you how to recognize it so that you don’t repeat the horrible mistake made by my boss all those years ago. Okay, you know the way O.J. reacted when he was accused? It’s the opposite of that.

United and American!

Did you read that title up there and think that this was going to be some mindless, patriotic drivel? Ha! That’ll be the day. There’s enough of that pablum on Fox. No, doofus, those are the names of two airlines, but now that I’ve completely sucked you in let’s continue in a civilized and orderly manner, shall we?

Listen, I enjoy watching this country slide down the tubes as much as the next guy, but things seems to be getting a little panicky in the airline industry. The main culprit, besides the pesky threat of getting blown out of the sky by a hand-held missile launcher, is apparently the every increasing cost of gasoline. Golly, we now have to pay almost half as much as the rest of the world!

No one can say for sure if we’ve finally reached desperate times, but I recently saw a story on TV that indicates the airlines are starting to take some desperate measures. The report presented some of the changes the airlines are implementing in order to save on fuel consumption. Personally I wouldn’t have even thought these alterations would make much of a difference, but apparently the airlines do and they are, after all, the professionals.

It seems that the main goal is to make the planes lighter. It is estimated that if the weight of each flight could be reduced by just fifty pounds an airline could save a million dollars a year. Isn’t that something? So, while some of these changes instituted by the airlines might seem insignificant and even silly, apparently fuel conservation is not dissimilar to penile length or cocaine purchases: every little bit counts.

First off, they want to stop painting the planes. Ha, you didn’t even think about the weight of the paint, did you? Do you know how much the paint on just one airplane actually weighs? Go on, take a guess. One hundred pounds? One thousand pounds? How the hell should I know? You knuckleheads have got to start doing some of your own damn research. I got a life too, you know.

They also plan to stop “topping off” the gas tanks on flights. Ironic, is it not, that the weight of the fuel makes an airplane burn more of it? And speaking of heavy liquids, they’ll be carrying less water on the flights too. Next time you’re alone (or whatever) in one of those claustrophobic little bathrooms you may find that you have enough water to flush the toilet or wash your hands, but not both. Tough decision, eh what? No matter what you decide you still come out a slob.

And what about all those magazines? The airlines want to limit the provided reading material to just one in-flight magazine. (I mean per passenger, of course, and not one for the whole plane. That would be absurd. Who wants to hear whiney businessmen ask, “You done with that?” five hundred times every hour?) And of course, the most obvious change of all is taking out the ovens. Sure, it will be a sacrifice to be deprived of that fine airline cuisine, but it will be worth it when the airlines save millions of dollars and cheerfully pass the savings on to you. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

These are some pretty good ideas, yes? Well, as a concerned citizen I’d like to assist our troubled airlines in any way I can. So to help lighten the load I’ve put together a few humble suggestions of my own. And you airlines out there are welcome to use them, and for free too. At least until you get back on your feet. Then we’ll talk.

Hey, if you can fly with the gas tanks half empty, you can certainly make sure the passengers board in the same condition. Let’s make it illegal for any passenger to eat or drink anything for three hours before a flight. To encourage adherence to this rule, and load-lightening pre-flight potty visits as well, let’s remove the bathrooms from all aircraft. And when exactly did medical research conclude that humans cannot survive a three-hour flight without two meals, a snack, a beverage and a movie?

They do it with hamburger, why not with airline tickets? Let’s charge by the pound! The price of your ticket will be based on your weight. For example, a short flight might cost a dollar a pound, while a cross-country jaunt could run four or five bucks a pound. Just think, Rosie O’Donnell’s ticket might pay the entire fuel cost for her flight while Karen Carpenter could have practically flown for free! It’s brilliant!

Finally, I don’t think I’m out of line with my next suggestion: mandatory pre-boarding colonics. There is no doubt that this practice could lighten every plane-load by hundreds of pounds or more, and it’s certainly no more a humiliating invasion of privacy than current airport security screenings. You’re welcome.

Ode to an Overachieving Pear Tree

My pear tree’s so loaded, but what can I do?
There must be a thousand; there might even be two.

Picking pears off the ground is a frustrating chore,
Each time there’s a breeze there are two hundred more.

Growing berries or melons or grapes is a hoot,
But the pear is nobody’s favorite fruit.

Every year I vow that I’ll can them for friends,
But even preserved, they’re just pears in the end.

I fill bags for my neighbors who thank me each day,
(I suspect when I leave they just throw them away.)

I tried making baked pears, topped with ice cream and such,
The ice cream was great, but the pears…not so much.

I could chop it down, but then I think twice,
The birds seem to like it and the blossoms look nice.

If things get much worse I’ll have to hire some pickers,
Oh, why can’t I have a tree that grows Snickers?

The Bathroom Sink: Part III -- The Final Chapter

First, let me begin my telling you that I was absolutely shocked, shocked I say, when I went back to re-read Part II of the bathroom sink saga and found that I had written it well over a month ago! Be aware that I have received some concerned inquiries that usually began with, “What ever happened with…?” And also know that I hadn’t simply forgotten about the topic. Yes, I do now have a functioning sink in the bathroom and yes, it has taken this long to get it installed.

As I hinted in Part II, the vanity I had lugged into the bathroom was simply too wide. True, I had measured it and it did fit in the available space, but it was so close to the toilet that when I sat there it felt like I had been squeezed into a space capsule. So back I went to Home Depot and explained the situation. Is it possible, I asked in the submissive, friendly-guy voice I use when I want something, to have the smaller cabinet delivered and the larger cabinet picked up at the same time? (Yes, I had kept the original box. I’ve been around long enough to know how these things usually go, at least for me. So I usually save original packaging and boxes for a nice safe period of time. Ten years is about right.

The customer service guy at Home Depot said that sometimes they will deliver and pick up merchandise at the same time, but that would depend on approval from a supervisor. Well believe me, I had my speech all prepared for when I received the expected rejection. “And exactly what criterion do you use to decide whose returns get picked up and whose don’t? Do you go by age? Religion? It’s because I’m black, isn’t it!" I scrapped that last one because, although it might have worked over the phone, it most likely wouldn’t succeed in person, me being white and all.

Well, it turns out I didn’t need my speech. The supervisor, praise be to him and his glorious family, said yes, they would be happy to deliver the new cabinet and pick up the old one. Happy days! Is this the same Home Depot that drove us nuts a few years ago when we ordered some shower doors and became so frustrated that we ended up canceling the order in a sputtering rage? Sure. Just chalk it up as another reminder that if you’re looking for continuity and logic in the universe you’re wasting your time. Of course there would be another $100 delivery charge for the new cabinet. No problem—I knew that going in. (And if you’re keeping score, that’s now $200 in delivery charges just to get this damn $179 vanity to my home.)

And now for the installation! Long gone were any absurd notions that I was going to do this myself. What had I been thinking? That I was a real man? How ridiculous! So I called our plumber to come out for an estimate. And when did my life become so settled and stodgy that I now have a regular plumber? A regular doctor, usually. A mechanic, sometimes. But a plumber? God, I’m in it up to my neck. Don’t get old, kids! Anyway this company had done a bunch of work for us before (for which I had paid a bunch of money) but they’ve always done a good job. So I called, made an appointment and a week later (seeing my doctor takes only two days) the plumber, my plumber, was standing with a clipboard and explaining what needed to be done. Outwardly I nodded in agreement as he droned on, while the verse, “Just get it done, just get it done” repeated on a loop inside my head. Finally he got to the bottom line and showed me the cost of accomplishing what he had apparently just described: $2100.00. I didn’t say a word but began frantically looking around on the floor.

“What are you looking for?” asked the concerned plumber.
“I was hoping that maybe a decimal point fell off that price.”
“Nope, that’s it. $2100.00.”
“Perhaps you heard me wrong.” I suggested. “Did you think I wanted a price for installing a bathroom sink and two round-trip tickets to Athens?”

Needless to say I used the husbandly cop-out of, “I’ll have to talk it over with my wife,” and paid him the $39.95 trip charge. You know, you could make a pretty good living that way. Go to people’s homes and give outrageous estimates, (A backyard deck? For you, five –hundred thousand dollars.) And when they recoil in horror simply pick up a check for forty bucks without doing a lick of work. You could do eight or ten of these a day and make a comfortable living that’s not marred by the threat of actually having to do any physical labor!

Next stop, the local talent. There must be a dozen handymen around and I began my search in the most logical of ways: Ask the neighbors! First stop my neighbor Bill across the street, who works in real estate and promptly provided me with a list of three candidates, listed by their price range—Cheap, Middle and Expensive. Then I asked another neighbor, Gloria, (Of course it’s a made up name, and you’ll see why in a minute. I haven’t forgotten about the hilarious article I wrote in my first book about some friends of my wife’s who send out this goofy family Christmas newsletter every year. There’s no way they could have read this article or even identified themselves if they did. And yet they haven’t returned my wife’s phone calls in over two years. Go figure.)

“Gloria” said she had the name of a retired contractor who did some work on her mother’s house and worked cheap. Cheap! I liked the sound of that. She also said she’d bring the number right over. About a week later I stopped to chat with her as she walked her dog and asked again about that number. No problem, she’d bring it over. Well, perhaps I should have asked when, because it’s been three weeks, the bathroom sink is installed, and still no number. Yeah, I know, why didn’t I drag my own ass down the street to get the number if I was in such a hurry? That’s not the point. Listen, if you ask me for a phone number I’ll have it to you within hours. Minutes, even. I’ll stop whatever I’m doing—eating, watching a movie, putting out an electrical fire, wrestling a polar bear--just to get you that number. That’s just the way I am. Does that make me a better person than you? Well, yeah, of course it does.

The first name I called on Bill’s list (and do I really need to tell you that I started with the cheapest?) had a disconnected number. The second company was a termite business. And yes, they said, they also installed bathroom sinks. Ah well, why not? The unemployment lines are full of people who are too highly specialized. The termite people sent out a plumber (Or maybe he was an exterminator. Who knows?) to give an estimate. He looked at the situation, while I neglected to mention the difficult fitting problem pointed out in the first estimate.

“Oh, this looks like it will run you about two—“
“What!”
“…hundred dollars.”
“Two hundred? Do it! Do it now!”

And so, gentle readers, he did. There was a problem with the fit, but you know what? He worked around the problem. He also made two trips to the hardware store. For five and a half hours this guy busted his ass getting that sink put in. And while yes it’s true that he spent a lot of that time mumbling to himself, I didn’t let it cause me undue concern. I know a bargain when I see one.

I don’t know if he thought I would be upset when the final bill came to not $200, but $225, but how could he know that I was silently giggling with glee as I wrote the check? Are you supposed to tip an exterminator/plumber? Who cares? Two months after the fiasco began I finally had a functioning bathroom sink. Plus I had just dodged a $1900 bullet. I gave him twenty bucks, for which he seemed surprised and grateful. Does this make me a better person than you? Well, yeah, of course it does.

TIME OUT !

HELLO FOLKS. I'LL BE TAKING A BREAK FROM THIS DELIGHTFUL BLOG FOR A FEW DAYS. I JUST GOT MY FLOPPY FIXED TODAY (WELL, NOT MY FLOPPY, BUT THE COMPUTER'S. MY FLOPPY WORKS JUST FINE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.) AND SO CAN NOW DO THE FINAL REWRITE ON MY NEW BOOK "THE LAST CLEAN STREAM IN AMERICA." I DON'T KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE OUT, BUT I DO KNOW THAT YOU'LL MOST CERTAINLY BE REQUIRED TO BUY IT.

MEANWHILE I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY WHINING UNLESS YOU HAVE READ ALL SIXTY ENTRIES ON THIS BLOG, READ ALL ONE HUNDRED-PLUS ARTICLES ON MY WEBSITE AND BOUGHT AT LEAST ONE COPY, AND PREFERABLY TWO, OF MY FIRST BOOK, AVAILABLE AT WWW.LEONARDSTEGMANN.COM. AND EVEN THEN I STILL DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY WHINING. GO READ SOMEBODY ELSE'S WRITING, LIKE HEMINGWAY OR FAULKNER OR HAWTHORNE. OF COURSE THE SCRIBBLING OF THOSE HACKS WON'T COME CLOSE TO MEASURING UP TO THE QUALITY OF WRITING THAT YOU'RE USED TO HERE, BUT IT WILL HELP YOU TO PASS THE TIME UNTIL I RETURN.

SEE YOU IN A FEW.

--LEN

Three Card Monte: Lucky Bastards

Howdy Folks, it’s time once again to play the game that’s sweeping the nation: Three Card Monte! We haven’t played the game in a couple of weeks and if the truth be told I’m kind of itching to get back to it. My anxiety is due in no small part to the fact that last time we played every single one of you creeps, whether by e-mail or in the “Comments” section, correctly identified the false story. It seems I didn’t fool a single one of you with my apparently not-so-clever Mick Jagger story. Oh, aren’t you all so damn smart?

So tonight the gloves are coming off. (Mostly because it’s warm in here and besides it’s hard to type that way.) You know how the game is played. Below are three stories about some very lucky people indeed. Two of the stories are true and one I made up. Your job is to pick out the fake story. Not as easy as it sounds, is it? OK, yes it is. Play anyway.


STORY ONE

In 1950 a church in Beatrice, Nebraska exploded. The explosion occurred at 7:25 p.m., five minutes after the scheduled start time of the weekly choir practice. The church exploded with such force that the building’s walls were blown out and the heavy wooden roof crushed what remained of the structure. Additionally windows of nearby houses were broken and a local radio station was forced off the air. Firemen speculated that the explosion was caused by natural gas that had been ignited by the recently lit furnace. Despite the magnitude of the explosion not a single person was hurt. It seems that for various reasons that included car trouble, waking up late from a nap, homework and last minute dress ironing, all fifteen of the usually punctual members of the choir had arrived late that night.

STORY TWO

In 1989 a financial analyst purchased a painting at a flea market for four dollars. Although the painting itself, a country scene, was worn and torn, the man had actually made the purchase because he liked the frame. He was dismayed when he tried to remove the painting and found that the frame came apart in his hands. His sadness turned to joy when he discovered that hidden behind the painting was what seemed to be a first printing copy of the Declaration of Independence from 1776. In time the man discovered that not only was the treasure authentic, but it was one of the three finest examples of the original Declaration known to exist. It sold at auction for nearly two and a half million dollars.

STORY THREE

In 1941 three young and inebriated soldiers were staggering back from their forty-eight hour leave. They were more than four hours late and had the misfortune of running into a superior officer. This officer had reprimanded the trio in the past and was now out of patience. He refused to allow the sailors to board their ship and commanded them to leave until they were ready to come back and “behave like men.” The three humiliated men staggered back into town where they slept it off in a cheap hotel. Awakened the next morning by the wail of sirens and the explosion of bombs, they rushed back to their ship, but would never set foot on it again. For the ship onto which they had been denied entry the night before was currently under attack by scores of Japanese aircraft. A short time later, as the three sailors watched in horror, their ship, the USS Arizona, would sink to the sandy bottom of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.


So, Hotshot, which is the fake story? The answer will be in the “Comments” section tomorrow night. See you there!

Rachael, Rachael

“She doesn’t have any breasts,” comments my wife Spike, jealously.
“I see two, right there!” I wittily reply.
“She has a big butt.”
“But she can cook.”
“I cook!”
“Honey, making Tuna Helper and forgetting to put in the tuna is not cooking.”

Yes it’s just another stimulating debate around the Stegmann household. Nah, we don’t waste time arguing about issues like Iraq, gasoline prices or the role of the U.N. in the 21st century. Really, at this point why bother? No, tonight’s discussion is centered on the relative merits of the latest hot patootie of my dreams, Ms. Rachel Ray.

It began about a year ago, or maybe it was two. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon (It might not have been raining, but I’m trying to justify my watching TV on a Saturday afternoon, so just go along, ok?) and I was channel surfing when I got pulled into a T.V. show, a show I would seemingly never have stopped to watch in a million years. Some chick was trying to get through the day by only spending forty dollars on all her meals. “What’s the big deal?” I wondered. I’ve been doing that my whole life. And sometimes on forty dollars a week!

The fact that she was going to various restaurants around Lake George in upstate New York was certainly at least part of the reason I stayed with the program, having spent my wonder years not too far from that region. Still, there was something about the woman hosting the show. She was pudgy, to be sure, with a flat Mid-Western sounding voice; the kind of voice that might be useful in sending stray dogs howling from your yard. Actually, the whole production seemed like it belonged on Public Access and yet I continued to watch. Eventually I came to realize that this perky, over-fed woman with the grating voice was not entirely…un-cute. In fact, I found her quite appealing.

I watched the entire show and enjoyed it. I even thought about it later on. It was sometime later, on another rainy Saturday, (ha!) that I thought I saw this same woman hosting a cooking show. I watched her for a while and found out that her name was Rachael Ray. Soon I began noticing her popping up more and more frequently on the Food Network, until at times it seemed as if she had six or seven shows on at once. At first I felt a sense of pride, as if I had discovered her and now I was sharing her with the whole world. My little girl was popular!

But that was just it. I didn’t want to share her with the whole world. Rachael was mine! Yet events over the next few months would tell me that this was a love that was never meant to be. Next I was wandering around a Barnes & Noble and suddenly stumbled upon an entire rack of Rachel Ray cooking books! And then there she was again, her gloriously beaming face on the pages of puerile stroke mags like Maxim and FHM.

Why had I felt that Rachael was and would remain my little secret? And what is it about her that I, and apparently millions of other, more inferior, men, find so gosh darn attractive? My wife called her flat chested, and she’s right. But that doesn’t stop my little Rachael from wearing those tight t-shirts while she’s mixing up a big bowl of bay shrimp scampi with angel hair pasta. Rachael also seems a little bottom-heavy, but I’m not really sure about this. Watch her show and you’ll see that every time her body even hints towards turning away from the camera the director changes the shot with the split-second timing of your twelve-year old son killing cops in Grand Theft Auto. And so what? That’s what a director is supposed to do. You’re not supposed to turn your back to the camera. Right? Right?

“She just mentioned that someone named ‘John’ likes this recipe,” goaded my wife.
“Big deal. John could be her gay director. Or her cocker spaniel.”
“She’s married. Look, she’s wearing a ring.”
“She is not. And besides, some of my most memorable lovers were married women.”
“What??!!”
“Uh, I meant you, Precious.”

I think that those of us who desire Rachel Ray are the latest victims of what I call The Martha Stewart Syndrome. Years ago I spend an entire hour on a Thanksgiving morning completely enthralled as I watched Martha stuff a turkey with her own delicate hands, which caused me to miss a sizable part of that dopey parade that I always watch. Remember the young Martha, beautifully dressed and in command of her kitchen, her blonde bangs hanging sensuously into her teasing, laughing eyes? Martha always looked like she had just rolled out of bed after twelve vigorous hours of teaching you the finer points of the Kama Sutra and was now ready to create a magnificent a seven-course gourmet meal to help you re-build your dangerously depleted strength levels.

Well, Martha may still be able to stuff a spring chicken, but she no longer is one; plus she’s a convicted felon, you know. So maybe the rise in Rachael’s popularity is nothing more than the changing of the guard. Perhaps she’s the latest is a series of TV chefs who represent what we’re seeking in the perfect woman: one who can whip us into a frenzy in the bedroom and then whip us up a soufflé in the kitchen. It’s what all men want: Food and Sex, those two powerful and eternally renewable urges, combined into one complete, confident, take-charge superwoman. These, then, are the women of our fantasies: Rachael Ray. Martha Stewart. Julia Child. Oh wait, god no, not Julia Child! Terrific. Now I’ll have to deal with that distubing image floating around in my head all night long!

Down the Drain

I’ve been around the block a time or two and let me tell you there’s one thing I’m not, and that’s gullible. Well, I’m also not rich. And I’m not thin. Or young. Oh, I’m also not ambitious. Oh yeah, and I’m not tall. Or employed. Okay, okay, so there are many things I am not, but gullible is certainly one of them.

It was just about fourteen years ago that I was standing on the Equator (And I mean right on the Equator—there was even a painted line!) in Kenya as I watched a native give a very unique demonstration. (Yes, he was from Kenya, which therefore made him a native, so give me a break here, OK?) The young man held a plastic bowl with a small drain hole in the bottom, a pitcher of water and some blades of grass.

He began by announcing in his strong, clear voice that he was about to demonstrate that water always drains clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, and then he proceeded to prove just that. Seemingly.

He and our small group of spectators first walked about twenty feet north of the painted line where he poured some water into the bowl. He then dropped four or five blades of grass into the draining bowl, so that we might better see that the water was indeed draining in a clockwise direction. So far, so good.

We then walked about forty feet south which (since I suspect that you barely passed fifth-grade mathematics) now put us twenty feet south of the Equator. Our demonstrator then repeated the process of pouring the water into the bowl and tossing in a few blades of grass. And lo and behold, the water was now draining counter-clockwise! Whoa! We all clapped and I gave our scientifically-minded young friend a couple of dollars. This, I thought, was a small price to pay for such an entertaining and educational performance. After all, I had learned something that I had never known before.

The concept that water will drain in one direction in the Northern Hemisphere and another in the Southern Hemisphere is based on the Coriolis Effect, which concerns itself with the effect that the rotating Earth has on moving objects. The most striking examples of the Coriolis Effect are hurricanes, which actually rotate clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.

Skip ahead and it’s now eleven years later. My trip to Africa is a distant memory, although brilliantly documented in a book I had been just about to release. (And which, happily, is available at http://www.leonardstegmann.com/. Order now and beat the Christmas rush!) Sometime just before I completed my final rewrite I hear that the idea of water draining in different directions is utter nonsense. Uh-oh. I have a whole chapter talking about the wonderful knowledge I had acquired during that oh-so-fascinating demonstration on the Kenyan Equator.

I did some research, the Internet now having been popularized and at my beckon call, and found out the facts. That little bastard! He had his bullshit act honed like a Shakespearean actor and I fell for it like some dewy-eyed schoolgirl! It turns out no matter where you are in the world the direction in which water will drain is controlled mostly by the shape of the bowl and the manner in which the water is poured. Luckily I was able to rewrite the story to show that I had been, in my great wisdom, aware of that obvious hustle from the very beginning.

That little bastard!

.

The Nucular Threat

Of course you’ve heard all the ungodly wails and cries of alarm and gnashing of teeth over the prospect of Iran developing nuclear weapons within the next ten years, or the next ten minutes, depending on whose word you’re trusting these days. Relax. Iran isn’t going to throw anything that they would rather not have thrown back at them. So there’s really nothing to worry about. On the other hand, there’s always the threat that these devastating weapons could end up in the hands of some unstable whacked-out government, like Iraq or North Korea or the Truman Administration.

Actually all this nuclear hubbub has made me a tad curious and I know you must be, too. And just this minute I’ve decided to turn tonight’s topic into one of those cute little quizzes that you all love so well. So do your best to answer the fun questions below and have yourself a blast! So to speak.


1. Which country has the most nuclear warheads?

a. India
b. Russia
c. U.S.A
d. China

2. How many of the world’s countries are known to possess nuclear weapons?

a. 8
b. 20
c. 47
d. Over 100

3. Which country does not have nuclear bombs?

a. France
b. U.K.
c. Israel
d. Kazakhstan

4. None of the countries below currently has nuclear a weapon, but all possess the technology needed to build one except which one?

a. Brazil
b. Sweden
c. Saudi Arabia
d. Canada

5. An atomic bomb will destroy most structures within a one-mile radius. A hydrogen bomb will destroy most structures within a two-mile radius. How far would the destructive force of a suitcase nuclear bomb extend?

a. .15 miles
b. 1.5 miles
c. 15 miles
d. 150 miles


Wasn’t that fun? How’d you do? Let’s check out the answers below:

ANSWERS:

1. RUSSIA. Our old commie pals currently possess about 16,000 nuclear bombs while the U.S., checking in this week at #2 with a bullet, has a paltry 10,350. China runs a distant third with a mere 400. Snicker-snicker. So I guess the world can sleep easy tonight knowing that there are 16,000 nuclear warheads in the hands of the same people who can’t even get a submarine to work right.

2. EIGHT. Or maybe nine if North Korea has them. The other members of this exclusive little club are France, The United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan and India. Which also gives you the answer to the next question…

3. KAZAKHSTAN. But with 16,000 big boys manufactured just across the street, they already have all the technology they need.

4. SAUDI ARABIA. And it’s a darn good thing, too, because that’s where we store most of our oil.

5. .15 MILES. See? That’s nothing. Apparently these suitcase bombs barely have the pop of your average Fourth of July M-80. You could probably outrun them, for crying out loud.


Now that you know the truth about nuclear weapons, don't you feel better? Pleasant dreams, Everybody!

Daylight Savings and Loan

I know that it must have come as an incredible shock to all of you to discover that the new Energy Bill contains little more than lip service when it comes to easing current energy prices and dependence on foreign oil. Oh my! What an embarrassing oversight by our usually forward-thinking legislators.

Quick, in what month does daylight savings time start and in what month does it end? Wrong. It starts in April and it ends in October. And no, I wouldn’t have known it either if I hadn’t first looked it up. And would you know what to do with your clocks at these special times if it weren’t for that old adage, “Spring forward, Fall back?” Neither would I. And could you explain in an intelligent and coherent manner why we have daylight savings and how it helps us to save energy? I might be able to do that, but I’d have to think about it really hard, probably use up half a ream of paper and get nothing but a headache for my effort. Plus I no longer have the time for such nonsense. Didn’t I just tell you last night that I now have HBO?

You probably already know that in the new Energy Bill there is a provision to extend daylight savings time, starting in 2007. (They’ll probably need the extra daylight to brighten the impeachment hearings.) Isn’t this great? Here we are on the threshold of an energy catastrophe unlike the world has ever seen and what’s our solution? Rebates for purchasing smaller cars? Tax credits for alternative energy research? Nah, we’ve got a better idea: We’re going to fuck with time!

The plan is to begin daylight saving three weeks earlier and end it one month later. Already there is a great hue and cry rising above our doomed cities: Our VCR’s won’t work! We’d set them to record Battle of the Reality T.V. Stars and we might end up recording some low-quality program instead. And our cell phones! In the name of Jesus and all that is holy, please don’t mess with our beloved cell phones!

And what, may I ask, are we to do about…Canada? Suddenly this has become an important issue. If the United States begins daylight savings earlier and Canada doesn’t, then the two countries will be completely out of sync. Yes, even more so than usual. A businessman in Iowa may want to order a shipment of hockey sticks or beaver pelts at 9:00 in the morning, but what’s this? Sacre bleu! The Canadian hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet! Can economic chaos be far behind?

Hey goober, do you think I’m really concerned that this new daylight savings plan is nothing more than a band-aid that's been slapped onto America’s gaping energy wound? Pshaw! Who cares? I’m more than happy to take the ride with the rest of you as this country dramatically and irreversibly skids down the tubes to second-rate powerhood. Hell, I’ll be squealing “wheeeee!” all the way. (As long as there’s still enough energy to keep HBO on the air, that is.) I simply don’t like daylight savings, and for only the most selfish of reasons, I assure you.

Among my favorite days of the year is the day we set the clocks back. I love the winter. I love the dark. I love the crappy weather and I especially love hearing the same people whining year after year, “It’s getting dark so ear-r-r-r-ly!” as if the planet had just spun out of its orbit and was spinning out of control into deep space. And now they expect me to wait an additional week for this magical day? No way, man. Besides, I’ve already learned my lesson.

The truth is I’ve been cheated by daylight savings once before. It happened over thirty years ago. The President of the United States, Richard Nixon, signed an emergency bill to begin daylight savings time three months earlier than usual. This meant that on January 6, 1974 the clocks would be pushed ahead one hour. This also meant, incidentally, that this randomly selected day would be only twenty-three hours long. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. You see, January 6, 1974 happened to be my twenty-first birthday! My twenty-first birthday and that bastard Nixon shortened it!

Yes, I’m stillbitter. The government owes me some birthday time! And this should serve as a warning to any other president, current or future, who is thinking about messing around with our time, and especially with our birthdays. Always remember the unhappy case of Richard M. Nixon, who recklessly set the clocks ahead three months early in 1974. Can you think of anything else that happened to Mr. Nixon in that year?

It's Not T.V.

OK, let’s get this done fast. I’ve just finished watching Bill Maher’s stand-up special and two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. There’s a repeat episode of Entourage that’s coming on at midnight, and I’m sure as hell not going to be sitting here writing this drivel when it does.

A little back-story: I left my job at Comcast about a year and a half ago. It took them almost a year to get around to canceling my free cable service, but when they finally did I tell you it was a dark, grim day. Imagine arriving home on a day much like any other only to find that all of your premium channels have been taken away and you are now forced to live with only basic cable. Like an animal.

Which I did for about eight months, right up until yesterday. When Spike mentioned that she wouldn’t mind getting HBO again I leaped for the phone and within an hour we were hooked up. Yes, that quickly. Those former co-workers of mine at Comcast are really on the ball. (See, I don’t hold grudges. As far as you know.)

The upgraded service included not one, but eight different HBO channels, and added about $24 to our monthly bill. What we got is something called the “Silver Package”, and it came with an additional forty cable channels. Now most of these, like The Scotch Tape Channel, Infectious Disease Central, and Men Suck! are not channels that I’ll be watching on a daily basis, but it’s still nice to know they are there.

But HBO! How does this premium cable channel continue to produce so many quality programs year in and year out? I know, I know, it’s much more fun when I piss and moan about something, but when a product or service is so good doesn’t it deserve to be recognized? So last night was my first since getting back together with HBO, and I celebrated by reacquainting myself with Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I then somehow found the strength to pull myself away from an episode of Six Feet Under in order to write last night’s entry, just for you. It’s a mistake I won’t be making again, I assure you.

And as if that wasn’t enough entertainment for one night, there were also two very educational documentaries airing on two different HBO channels at the same time. One was about strippers of the 1940’s and one was about a modern-day whorehouse. As I bounced between the two shows I realized I hadn’t been that torn since trying to decide between Original and Extra-Crispy at the Colonel’s. (Incidentally, the show about the whorehouse was in Spanish, but you know somehow a lot of the story still got through.)

In addition to the above-mentioned shows, I’m looking forward to my upcoming reunion with such HBO classics as Deadwood and The Sopranos. There’s also a new show starring Lisa Kudrow that looks promising. Plus I have no doubt there will be many more of those highly educational, uh, documentaries.

Listen, I’m not going to whore myself for HBO (unless requested to) but people have sometimes asked me which premium channel they should get. This column is my answer. And if HBO feels the need to show its appreciation with an obscenely large check or free service or even a lousy t-shirt (XL), well, who am I to say no? Whoops, it’s almost midnight. And so I must now ask you to forgive me for rushing off so suddenly, but I’ve got a date with the premium cable channel of my dreams. God, it's been months since I've felt so alive!

Dream a Little Dream--Part II

And so, true to my humiliating confession in Part I, one of my dreams last night was again about Howard Stern. Howard didn’t actually make an appearance in this one, probably because he’s too busy with his impending move to satellite, but the dream did feature a sheet with lyrics from a song parody that was used on his show. What did I tell you?

The Stern reference in my dream might have served as a signpost, as we discussed last night, but it didn’t. Regardless, tonight, as promised, I will reveal the successes that I’ve had over the last year as I train myself in the art of the lucid dreaming.

It was actually the night before last that I had a dream that showed me just how tricky and cunning the human mind can be. Sometimes it can be so frustrating that you want to shout, “C’mon Brain, work with me on this!” In the dream both sides of my family, the Germans and the Italians, were having a big reunion. I was very happy to see everybody (including a guest appearance by my cousin who had just yesterday posted a comment on these pages) and was having a fine time when I noticed an uncle who shouldn’t have been there.

If you remember last night’s column you know that I use certain signals or “signposts” to alert me when I am dreaming. One of them is seeing a person who has passed away. In my dream of two nights ago, I realized the fact that Uncle ________ should not have been there because he was dead. The fact that I recognized this in my dream is a big step when training to lucid dream. So here I am, well on my way, when my big, stupid brain gets in the way, in the form of my aunt, and knocks me right off the tracks. “That’s not your Uncle _______” she says. That’s his brother.” And right away in my dream I accept this explanation with a “Duh, Okay,” and any chance I had to experience a lucid dream has evaporated. I don’t even know if that uncle actually even had a brother.

Despite the failure to achieve lucidity, I knew upon awakening that I was making progress. Over the past year there have been about ten dreams during which I was lucid, almost lucid or at least on the right path. Unfortunately, not only don’t I keep a dream journal, I didn’t even bother to make a record of these breakthrough dreams. Still I recall some of them and I’ll describe each one briefly as best as I can. And remember that before I had started to train myself, even in my own half-assed way, I had not had a lucid (or flying) dream for over forty years. Now in the last year I have had somewhere between five and ten. Something must be working.

About eight months ago I succeeded in having my first lucid dream since childhood. I hate to admit this, but in the dream, sadly, I turned out to be quite a pussy. But I knew that I was dreaming so it still counts! I was with a small group of people. I didn’t know who they were but I got the feeling that they were not particularly friendly—kind of like 1940’s street toughs. You know, the type who might sneer, “Ah, so’s yer old man.” The Little Rascals with attitude. I was explaining to them that I knew that this was a dream, and maybe I was being a little too self-satisfied in my pronouncement. One of the punks challenged me by saying something like, “If this is just a dream, why don’t you stab yourself in the arm with this knife?” I immediately went into a perfect Ralph Kramden-esque, “hama-hama-hama,” and of course declined the challenge. I explained weakly that I wasn’t sure if you could still feel pain in a lucid dream and I would hold off on any self-destructive behavior until I could look up the answer in the book tomorrow.

OK, hopefully this will not be my proudest moment in my lucid dreaming career, but despite my caution, I had succeeded. A month or so later I had my first flying dream in over forty years. In it I was teaching children how to fly and was aware that I was dreaming. This has been the only flying dream I’ve had in the past year, although I do recall having them fairly often as a child. Well, maybe it’s because I weigh more now, and it’s just that much harder to achieve lift-off. Again, though, I chalk it up as a success.

One of the problems faced by the beginning lucid dreamer is that often he will get so excited when he realizes that he is dreaming that he immediately awakes. I had a lucid dream about two months ago, and when I realized I was lucid and had not woken up I was overcome with joy. I was laughing and bouncing up and down because I had done it. I had become lucid and the surprise had not woken me up! Once I calmed down a bit I was overtaken by a general feeling of “Now what?” I couldn’t think of anything to do! None of the wondrous opportunities that I mentioned in Part I, such as flying, space traveling, incredible buffets or even more incredible sex came to mind. I just stood there like a dope. A lucid dope. Hey, I’m still learning.

The books I’m reading talk of people who have trained themselves so well that they are able to have lucid dreams on just about any night they choose. And in those dreams they can do anything they want within the bounds of their imaginations. Even with my sloppy, ill-disciplined training I have achieved some degree of success in creating lucid dreams. While it’s too soon to deliver a definitive verdict, I strongly suspect that the premise set forth in these books is accurate: That with a little discipline and training most people can teach themselves to experience the thrill of lucid dreaming.

So I’m going to continue, in my own meandering way, to hone this skill, explore the possibilities and to enjoy the fruits of my labors. And if you are an attractive woman who I happen to know, and if the next time we meet I look at you with a funny little smirk on my face, then, my friend, you’ll know that I’ve succeeded in creating yet another exciting lucid dream. And you’ll also know that this time it was starring you.

Dream a Little Dream--Part I

I’m a pretty down-to-earth guy. OK, I’m not particularly pretty, but I am down-to-earth. (God, how I hate the English language.) I don’t believe in astrology, psychics, levitation, water-to-wine, fortune-tellers, chain letters, bad luck, good luck, astral projection, reincarnation or the healing power of crystals. And while I accept that there may well be other life forms “out there,” I’ll most likely remain unconvinced as to the veracity of alien abduction claims until a couple of those bug-eyed freaks actually drag me on board and insert that high-tech doohickey into a place that I really would prefer that it not be inserted.

I let you know all this in advance because lately I have had some experiences that I’d like to share, and they’ll probably seem a little odd and hard to believe at first. Let me assure you that there is nothing weird or otherworldly about what I’ve done, and you can verify any claims I make simply by doing a little experimenting yourself. On yourself.

Have you ever heard of a “lucid dream”? You may be unfamiliar with the term, but you’ve probably had one or more at some time in your life. A lucid dream is simply a dream during which you are completely aware that you are dreaming. I remember having them occasionally when I was a kid, but I hadn’t recalled having any past the age of seven or eight. Until recently.

Look on the web and you can find several books, tapes and even machines that claim to teach you the art of lucid dreaming. I immediately thought that the expensive machines reeked a bit of that rip-off smell, but about a year ago I did purchase a couple of the books and began my investigation.

First off, you might be asking, why would anybody want to have lucid dreams? The books explain that there are many high-minded answers to this question. Since we spend about a third of our lives asleep, why not use this time to do additional living? Think of the adventures you could have! You could fly! You could visit with deceased loved ones! You could instantly travel around the world, or to other planets! You could slap your boss! These incredible experiences and many more are available to you each and every night, once you teach yourself the secret to creating lucid dreams. Oh, and did I mention the sex?

The books I read outlined a step-by-step process that, if followed faithfully, should assist you in having lucid dreams within a short period of time. The success rate varies from person to person, but the authors of these books claim that teaching yourself lucid dreaming is a skill that can be mastered by nearly anybody.

First, I must confess that as a researcher and direction-follower I was a complete slob. The books recommend that you keep a dream journal, which I never did. They also suggest setting an alarm clock to awaken yourself two hours before your regular time, then staying awake for an hour, and then returning to sleep. Yeah, right.

I did, however, follow some of the less inconvenient instructions. During the day I repeatedly asked myself, “Am I dreaming right now?” Now, of course when I do this I’m aware that I am fully awake, (or am I? Ooooooooh…) but the theory is if you train yourself to ask this question while awake, you will eventually ask yourself the same question when you are dreaming. Also, before falling asleep at night I repeatedly suggested to myself that when I dreamed I would be aware that I was dreaming.

I also tried to remember to recognize “signposts” in my dreams. A signpost is something or someone that appears in your dream that should serve as an immediate signal that you are dreaming and that what you are seeing isn’t real. Maybe your dog talks to you or the sky is plaid. There are two main signposts that I used. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but the person who appears most often in my dreams is…Howard Stern. (“You’re just a little embarrassed by that?” you ask incredulously.) What I’ve now tried to train myself to do is to recognize that I am dreaming anytime I seem to be with a famous person. Any famous person. Also, if I find myself speaking with someone who I know to be dead, this is another opportunity to recognize that I am indeed in the middle of a dream.

So are you still with me on this? It’s really not so strange, is it? After all, unlike psychics and UFO’s, lucid dreams are known to exist; most of us have had at least one at some time or other. The question is can we train ourselves to control our dreams and to create lucid dreams whenever we desire? Can we turn our ordinary dreams into interactive 3-D movies starring ourselves; dreams that are as wild and wondrous as our imaginations allow them to be? Stay tuned!


TOMORROW: THE RESULTS!

Useless Information: The Dunce Cap

I know, I know--back-to-back Useless Information’s. Bad form, eh what? Listen, how about letting me slide just this once? I saw a movie the other day that had a kid wearing one of those dunce caps so I just had to find out where they came from.

Remember when you were back in school and the teacher made you sit on that stool and wear a dunce cap? And remember how all the other kids laughed at you and called you names and wouldn’t even sit with you at lunch? Did you wonder, as you sat there entombed in your spirit-crushing shame, where the concept of the dunce cap actually originated? Of course you didn’t. If you possessed that kind of intellectual curiosity you probably wouldn’t have been sitting on the stool wearing a dunce cap to begin with.

Well chum, many years have passed since that horrible day, and though you’re still hopelessly struggling with feeble attempts to work it all out in therapy, I’m here tonight to at least explain from where the dunce cap came. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? No, I suppose not.

I’m told there is a video out by a singer named Kate Bush in which she wears a dunce cap. I can’t confirm this. I’m not familiar with this young lady’s music since she apparently wasn’t a part of the British Invasion of the 1960’s. Also, it’s nearly impossible for me to conceive of anybody named Bush being so incredibly dumb as to qualify for a dunce cap. Ah, but enough of our 21st Century difficulties. Come with me now back to the 13th Century (that’s the 1200’s for those of you who have experienced wearing those pointy hats) and meet the man from whose name the term “dunce cap” is derived.

John Duns Scotus was a 13th Century philosopher, theologian and teacher whose books were used as textbooks in the finest universities of the time. And I mean real hotshot places, like Oxford and Cambridge; schools that your dunce hat-wearing self couldn’t even dream of getting into, then or now. His followers were called “Dunsmen” or “Dunses.” (Why weren’t they called “Scotusmen”, you ask? How the hell should I know?)

Anyway, as time passed the writings and philosophies of Scotus came under more and more criticism, especially in the 16th Century (that would be the 1500’s, Cletus) when the humanists began to run the show and the term “dunse” was used to denote a fool. It was in a 1624 play that we get the first mention of a “dunce table,” which is, you’ll remember, where you actually sat during lunch period. Alone. It wasn’t until 1840, in The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens, that we find the first written reference to the ”dunce cap.” The use of the dunce cap became associated mostly with Western culture, but did make a bit of a comeback as a valuable and humiliating teaching tool during the Communist Revolution in China.

Let’s close with some interesting stuff about our pal John Duns Scotus. This university teacher and scholar was a believer in the use of the conical hat as a learning enhancer, because its shape would funnel knowledge into the head. As evidence he pointed out that wizards wore similar hats, and I guess them wizards were pretty darn smart. I wonder if his students ever tried to get their tuition money back? Actually his students took it one step beyond requesting a refund when, in 1308, they stabbed Scotus to death with their pens. (I did some additional research here, folks, and to be honest the pen-stabbing story might be inaccurate. A few hundred years earlier there was a teacher with a similar name who was stabbed to death by his students. Well, that’s what he gets for wearing a 49er jersey while teaching in Oakland.)

In 1993 Scotus was beatified by Pope John Paul II. (Which isn’t that big a deal, really, when you realize that the late JP2 handed out beatifications and sainthoods like they were 2-for-1 Arby’s coupons.) And so, with this newly bestowed honor and recognition, John Duns Scotus, the man who lent his name to the dunce cap, has the last laugh after all. Except for the being dead part.

Useless Information: Adams and Jefferson

I was talking today to my old pal Fuzzy. (Actually we were e-mailing, but that sounds so cold and impersonal.) I’ve been helping her out on a project that required some research into John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. John Adams, for those of you who have only just recently snuck into this country, was the second president of the United States and Thomas Jefferson the third. Jefferson was also vice-president under Adams, which was, by the way, the first of only two times that the president and vice-president were of different political parties. (Lincoln and Johnson, since you’re just bursting to know.)

In 1776 both Adams and Jefferson were chosen to serve on the committee entrusted to draft the Declaration of Independence; Jefferson was selected to write the document while Adams became the strongest proponent for its adoption.

There is a lot of useless information about these two guys, fascinating stuff to be sure, but basically knowledge that when combined with four and a half bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbuck’s. Adams, for example, was known to be a hypochondriac. He always felt as if he was coming down with something. And yet somehow he lived to be 90 years old (just like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton! You did read Tuesday’s column, didn’t you?) and was the longest living president until Ronald Reagan.

Thomas Jefferson remains the only vice-president to serve as president for two full terms. (Think about it: In modern times alone Nixon, Bush and Ford all got the quick trip out the back door. And none too soon, neither.) Though he is considered by many to be one of the most brilliant men ever to occupy the White House (present company included) there is some evidence that Jefferson actually suffered from a form of autism. He had red hair, poor posture and later in life was known to be “negligent in dress.” (That is, he dressed like a slob, a fact that I somehow find satisfying as I sit here in my stretched-out sweatpants and gravy-stained Simpsons t-shirt.)

Adams and Jefferson disagreed on many political issues, but later in life they began a correspondence that lasted twelve years. The Adams-Jefferson Letters is available on Amazon for $13.88 and is supposed to be quite interesting reading. I expect I’ll be getting to it just as soon I finish up this Jackie Collins book. Oh, those Hollywood wives are so naughty!

OK, you’ve learned enough for tonight. The real reason I chose this topic is that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are involved in what is a most amazing coincidence and one of my favorite bits of useless information. (I can see a few of you already nodding your heads because you know where I’m going with this. Well, go ahead and leave now if you want, smarty-pants.) OK, I want the rest of you to get ready for this incredible piece of information. And be warned that it will be coming at you in not one but two astounding parts.

First, did you know that Adams and Jefferson, fellow founding fathers, former presidents and long-time pen pals actually died on the exact same day? Ta-da-a-a-a! In fact, John Adams’ very last words were an inaccurate statement: “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Jefferson had actually died a few hours earlier. Now isn’t that something?

Oh, you want more, you say? It’s never enough, is it? I blame cable TV. And rap music. OK, hotshot, dig this: The day that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died was July 4th, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! Wowee! Now there’s some useless information that you can use!

Three Card Monte: Rock Legends

Hey, we haven’t played Three Card Monte in a while. Regular readers (and I mean both of you) will remember how the game works, but I’ll review for any newbies who might have recently stumbled into our twisted little world. Below you’ll find three stories, two of which are true and one that I had a lot of fun making up. Your assignment, and you will accept it, is to identify the fake story. Tonight’s category is Rock Legends. Good luck to you both.


STORY A

During the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour in 1989 Mick Jagger slipped on the stage of the Metrodome in Minneapolis while performing some of his signature gyrations and immediately hobbled off the stage, out of sight of the audience and in extreme pain. He had pulled a muscle in his back and could barely walk. While backstage doctors attended to Jagger, Keith and the boys continued to vamp on stage, playing music as if nothing had gone wrong. Another Keith, Keith O’Brien, had been a roadie with the Stones on more than a few of their tours. His claim to fame was his dead-on impersonation of Jagger with which he had entertained his fellow crewmembers, as well as the Stones themselves, for many years. In the spirit of “the show must go on” it was decided that, at least until the painkillers given to Jagger took effect, O’Brien would go onstage for the ailing Mick. It has long be theorized that, although O’Brien bore a striking resemblance to Jagger, some people in the front rows surely must have noticed the switch. Still, it seems that nearly all of the thousands of fans who attended the concert that night left believing they had watched the real Mick Jagger performing raucous renditions of “Ruby Tuesday,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” and “Brown Sugar.”


STORY B

In 1967 The Monkees were red-hot and beginning their summer tour. Earlier, Mike Nesmith (the one with the hat) was visiting John Lennon in London, and was out to dinner with Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Lennon. Lennon had arrived late, but brought a tape of a guy singing “Hey Joe” for the group to hear. It was Jimi Hendrix. The Monkees soon became fans of Hendrix and invited him to open for them on their tour. Hendrix, still almost unknown in the U.S., agreed. He played several dates, but finally grew tired of teen-age girls screaming, “We want the Monkees!” and “We love Davy!” every night during his set. And so, with a farewell finger to the crowd, Hendrix stormed off the stage during a concert in Forest Hills Stadium in New York and thus ended one of the most bizarre musical pairing in history.


STORY C

Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” of course, and it has become the most covered song in history. There are over three thousand versions of the ballad on records and CD’s. McCartney claims that the melody of this song came to him in a dream, and that it was the only one of his hundreds of tunes that was created in this way. For a long time he believed that he must have heard “Yesterday” somewhere else, but when he played it for the Beatles and for others nobody thought it sounded familiar. He also had what were the original lyrics to the song in his head. They went something like, “Scrambled eggs. Oh my darling you’ve got lovely legs.” Thankfully he changed them and the rest is, as they say, musical history.

Clara and Flo: How Much Do You Know?

Sure you’ve heard their names. Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale. They were nurses or something, weren’t they? But how much do you really know about them? Not much, I’ll wager. Well, Shlomo, let’s test you out and see if you’ve retained anything from grade school besides snack time and cheating. Below is a quiz. Take it. Grade it. Be embarrassed.


1. Who was an American?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

2. Who aided soldiers during the Civil War?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

3. Who was known as “The Lady With the Lamp”?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

4. Who was born in the 1820’s?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

5. Who was the first president of the American Red Cross?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

6. Who became a strong advocate of women’s rights?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

7. Who was known to be “easy”?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Your mother.

8. Who learned Latin as a child?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

9. Who died at the ripe old age of 90 ?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

10. Who was known as “The Angel of the Battlefield’ ?
A. Clara Barton
B. Florence Nightingale
C. Both
D. Neither

Pencils down! Eyes up! How’d you do? Yeah, I bet. OK, by sheer guessing alone you should have gotten 2-3 right. Did you do better than that? I doubt it.

ANSWERS:

1. Clara Barton was American. Florence Nightingale was English, although she was born in an Italian city. Can you possibly guess which one?
2. Clara Barton. Florence Nightingale aided soldiers in the Crimean War a decade earlier.
3. Florence Nightingale. You can see the famous lamp at the Florence Nightingale Museum the next time you visit London. I’m sure it’s more interesting than sitting through “Cats.”
4. Both. Only a dope would get this one wrong. It’s obvious that I had to write “1820’s” to include them both. Otherwise I would have written 1820 or 1821. And you still got it wrong, didn’t you Sherlock?
5. Clara Barton. Some say she founded it. Some say she was forced out in 1905. Some say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
6. Both. Clara wanted them to be able to vote and Florence wanted them to be able to become doctors. Chicks, huh? What are ya gonna do?
7. Your mother. I’m sorry, but deep down you know it’s true.
8. Both. Back in those days all educated people, yes even Americans, learned other languages.
9. Both. Isn’t this amazing? Plus they were born about a year apart and died less than two years apart. No wonder we’re always confused about these two broads.
10. Clara Barton. I guess all the good “lamp” nicknames were already taken.

SCORING:

1-3 Correct: You’re a complete idiot. Just as I suspected
4-6 Correct: So you guessed a little better than average. Big deal. That’s what makes a bell curve, Chump.
7-9 Correct: You’re a cheater. Or a liar. Probably both.
10 Correct: You actually admitted that your mother was easy?

That Can't-Do Spirit!

Throughout my youth I often heard old folks claim that while they were not afraid of dying, they were afraid of growing old. “Not me!” I’d always chime in. “I’d be happy to live to be 200 if it meant not dying!” I mean, what’s to fear about growing old except dying? That’s how I thought in my youthful arrogance. Well, I may not have understood what they meant back then, but I’m beginning to get an inkling now, you bet.

We always measure age by the number. Some guy running a marathon might be passed by an ambulance rushing another guy to the hospital. And if they collide the newspaper will say, “Two 45-year-olds died today…” I think another way to measure age, besides the number of candles on your cake, is by listing those things you just can’t do anymore. Personally I can only think of one activity that I’ve put on the list so far, and if you’re good we’ll review it at the end of the column. (And until then you can get your dirty minds right out of the gutter. It’s not that. Or even that!)

My wife Spike purchased her last car because it was easier for her mother to get in and out of. (Yes, my wife is a much nicer person than I am.) For her mom, this was one of the things on her list: She couldn’t get in and out of small cars anymore. I myself just purchased one of the teeniest, tiniest, little clown cars you’ve ever seen. Every time I pull myself out of it I feel like I’m being born again, and I certainly don’t mean in any nutty religious sense. But I will keep doing it, because I absolutely refuse to add, “getting in and out of a small car” to my list.

Willie Nelson was being interviewed recently, by Stern I think, and he was talking about the wild times and endless women he had enjoyed during his career, and how crazy it got to be at times. When he was asked how he was able to stop this behavior he said it wasn’t his choice; time just had a way of taking it away from you. So you see, you shouldn’t feel too bad. Even Willie Nelson has a list!

I have climbed to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite three times in my life. It’s about an 18-mile hike from the valley floor and each time I did it in one day. Also each time I distinctly remember wondering, as I huffed and puffed up those goddamn switchbacks, if this would be the last time I would ever make this hike. Well, it’s been a number of years since I’ve done it, but I refuse to add it to my list. I know I could still do it if I had to. If I was forced to. If somebody had a gun to my head. Sure I could. I just don’t feel like it.

A few years back I was enjoying a box of that delicious candy, Jujyfruit. I’ve enjoyed them since I was a kid, although I’m beginning to suspect that the word “fruit” in the name may be somewhat misleading. (I’m not sure that eating a box counts as one of your “daily five.”) Candy aficionados know that you don’t just eat these gooey treats one or two at a time, but you’ve got to cram a whole bunch of them in your mouth for the ultimate gourmet experience. So here I am happily chomping away on what is basically a fist-sized sugared tar ball and whoops—I can feel the crown on the left side of my mouth pop off.

I go to the dentist feeling like some dopey eight-year-old, except that damn few eight year old have crowns, and the amused med-school dropout glues me back together. But, knowing me as you do, you realize that I refuse to accept any limitations on myself! (Especially where candy is concerned.) And so the very next day I begin to consume another box of Jujyfruit, although this time I am careful to only chew on the right side of my mouth. And what do you know? I had a crown there too.

Well, maybe he had flunked out of med-school, but my dentist was all smiles. And why shouldn’t he be? He had now made money two days in a row just by gluing candy-gummed teeth back into the head of some not particularly bright forty-five-year-old. And as I sat in that dentist chair I mentally took that clean white sheet and started my list. Number One: You can’t have Jujyfruit anymore. And I’m happy to say that as of this writing the Jujyfruit rule is the only item I’ve had to include on that dreaded list. At least as far as you know.