A Tattle Tale

  

We’re not all made to make things. But we shouldn’t feel too bad about it. Even the Maker himself needed a good amount of trial and error before fully realizing a few of his best ideas. And to think, he did it well before Ikea distributed their handy set of picture-heavy directions. He had to guess the order and use whatever tools were available. It’s hard to say whether he got things right. Breaking things though – that comes naturally to a great many of us. Here’s a story about someone who understood that all too well.

Giovanni “Predo” Prestigiacomo never said much. He never did much either. His skills were nil. His talent was nonexistent. He kept getting passed over for jobs and couldn’t figure out why. When he worked the graveyard shift at the local Burger joint, the manager replaced him with his mop, saying, “This here mop doesn’t complain. Getting grease out of linoleum doesn’t require a monologue.” Predo was hurt. He bought that mop, raising as if it were his own son, pressing tiny notches into it after each day of haphazard productivity. The manager didn’t care.  

So Predo floated through life, from job to job, gig to gig. He blended in with the scenery. No one paid attention to what he did – that was his secret. Stay in the shadows, dress in actual wallpaper if it means not being noticed. 

He was rotting, decomposing right in his desk chair. A desk chair that was likely worth more than his entire life - including assets. Treading water would have been an improvement. He never learned anything. He never asked questions. He never sought advice or mentorship.

How could he be surprised when the promotions never came? He was lucky just to be there. Most of his workday conversations began the same way, “And you are…?”

One lazy Thursday Predo got a memo from a superior saying that several copies of a recent project were needed. While he was morally opposed to copying – committed to the confusing belief that it was deeply immoral - he went ahead with it anyway. There could only be one original. How he squared this with his own existence – himself a copy of his slightly older, significantly smarter brother – was never adequately explained. But in the printer room, Bill was already there. Bill wasn’t exactly a rival - at least no more than any other member of the species. He waited.

When Bill left, Predo perked up to perform his task. For some reasons  it wasn't working. He couldn’t do it. It seemed there was a paper jam. He opened the bottom printer drawer and noticed an old sandwich inside. Smelled like tuna, looked like chicken. Though it was hard to say. He recalled seeing Bill eat a sloppy breaded lunch every Thursday. When your life isn’t full of relationships and worthwhile interactions, you take notice of other things to fill your mind. Bill must’ve jammed the printer and fled the scene. Without thinking, Predo sent a note to his boss, letting him know what had transpired in the printer room. And he never did make those copies.

Bill was fired by the end of the day. Predo noticed him clearing out his desk, astonished at what he’d done with a simple, two-line email. This was his ticket. This was how he'd succeed. He remembered telling schoolteachers about a classmate sneaking a cigarette or playing hooky. It was a rush then, as it was now. 

That's how his ascent began.

He recorded private chats in the bathroom between disgruntled colleagues. He plied friends with booze to get them to behave boorishly. He scoured social media for ancient posts of coworkers, hoping to dig until he struck gold. Which he did again and again. Six months later, half the office was gone thanks to Predo’s sleuthing. Up the ladder he climbed. He cleared out most of HR, turning of them the moment they were no longer useful.

Predo is the CEO now, having leapfrogged the entire company, backstabbing and tattling straight to the top. He’s still not good at anything, except unearthing past sins of questionable impropriety. The Board of Directors acts on less than a rumor. A whiff of a rumor. That's all they need to get a sense of the possible damage. How long can this charade last? If anyone's following Predo, not much longer. 

I asked...

I asked our seven-year-old who ate the last ding-dong.

She said, “Look inside yourself.”

I asked a follow-up question about what they used to be called, long before seemingly every Hostess product was either a rhyme or an alliteration. 

She said, “Big Wheels, stupid.”

I asked her if there was any difference between a ding-dong and a ring-ding. 

She said, “You’re a ding-dong.”

I asked her if either would survive an Atomic bomb, outpacing the radioactive fallout, as a safe snack for future roaches and other assorted shelter survivors. 

She said, “That's not something you ask a member of your nuclear family.”

I asked her what she knew about fission. 

She said, “I need a chalkboard. Do we have a chalkboard?”

I asked her why she couldn't just use a whiteboard.

She said, "They aren't romantic. Scratch one and nobody flinches. You'll see."

I asked her if she thought there was something wrong with putting a pastry in a vending machine, when most good people feel they belong under glass at any decent French bakery.

She said, “Where they get stale? Where customers touch the glass? Where mistakes happen?”

I asked her if she pronounces it ‘croissant” with a hard “T” or “quasahn" like a Lyonnaise dandy.

She said, “Neither. I order danishes.”

I asked her why the long face.

She said, “Blame your genetics.” 

I asked her what’s a good example of failure.

She said, “You.”

I asked her what’s a better example of success.

She said, “Me.”

I asked her what’s the meaning of life.

She said, “Conversations like this." She then paused and said, "At least I hope so.”

Impeach, Implum, Imkumquat?

 

And those aren’t the only choices - not by a long shot. They are just the most popular, predictable and obvious selections made by lazy politicians unfamiliar with the country’s obscurer organic output. The story about how it came to this is long and boring. I’ll instead share a tale that’s both short and sweet - not unlike the finest, ripest melon. 

The first person ever “impeached” was the Roman senator, Stultus Amentis, several hundred years before the birth of Christ. He was, like most senators of the era, a grape lover. But that’s unimportant. What is important is that Stultus took to pilfering milk straight from the udders of his constituents, filling up without permission on his morning commute. You can hardly blame the man. Before refrigeration, milk was mostly the luxury of farmers and their well-fed families. Stultus felt that by representing the region, he could skim a little off the top. And even more than that, too. When caught cream-handed by a farmer’s daughter, Stultus thought he was done for. But the Romans were more civilized than the barbarians – at least back then. 

They hauled him off to the neighborhood stockade and decided to pelt him with LVII peaches – the same number of milk pitchers he’d stolen. The thought of pouring milk on his head, while humorous and cathartic, seemed like both a waste and giving the Senator what he wanted – a dairy drenching. When the first farmer picked up a peach, according to Pliny recording the events many years later, Stultus apparently said “impeach” as in, “no, not a peach.” Though the veracity of this story can be questioned given that Romans referred to peaches as Persian apples, the fact remains that throwing fruit at politicians has remained an essential part of representative government for the subsequent two thousand years.

Some centuries later, the 17^th President of the United States Andrew Johnson welcomed several dozen fresh peaches from the Georgia delegation directly to his noggin. There were others, of course. But we should thank the Romans that they picked the peach and not some lesser fruit. Imagine if, in their rage, they chose something a bit more dangerous. Like a spiked Durian, a Horned melon or an 80-pound Jackfruit just to make a point. As it turns out, the Romans got things mostly right. The selection of the peach in matters of political malfeasance is no different. 

Maybe Men

You don’t want a “Yes Man.” Not when you’re clinging onto a crooked branch along the banks of a rushing river, preparing your loose footing for a great leap forward. There are a few reachable dry stones, but their contours indicate a slippery surface that may put you directly into the rapids. Where, among the belligerent beavers and the spawning salmon, you’ll be soaked beyond comprehension, headed straight for the falls and certain death. “Yes Men” don’t weigh the pros and cons of any given situation. They’re not discerning enough to notice coastal erosion or ask if your pockets contain non-waterproof electronics. They sense what side you’re on and go with that. They know how much you’ve wanted to jump across a river since childhood (even if this particular tributary is more of a boring brook). They realize how Carl Lewis’s exploits at the 1996 Olympic Games influenced you immeasurably. The idea that some athletes get to jump for a living. But the stakes couldn’t be lower there, over the safe, cool sand box, adored by children and animals. How about jumping across something where the risk is enormous? “Yes Men” know all that. It’s why they are there to give you what you want. Or what you think you want. But they aren’t the ones who better be in shape. They can walk along the river in dress shoes totally carefree.

But you don’t want a “No Man” either. Not when you’re seriously considering risking life and limb on the guarantee that the tree limb you chose is up to snuff. Not when a successful display could lead to an agricultural revolution. Not when instead of questioning your agility, this dope should be repositioning their camera phone for optimal virality. One way or another, this video is going to change your life. Not to mention the lives of all the creatures who might follow your lead. You don’t need another obstacle. There’s already a surplus of those. 

What you want is a “Maybe Man.” Definitely. Someone who wants to hedge. A person who can’t quite decide what to say and would prefer leaving this exhibition to you and you alone. What are you going to do on the other side of the river? Jump back or take a long march home? And isn’t there a bridge a few hundred yards away? One of those quaint covered types, with the large planks and a historical plaque regaling every crosser with the region’s local lore? 

Maybe. 

Fake Outrage is Outrageous

Nothing makes me angrier. It’s more contrived than the late Phil Spector’s courtroom hairdo. It’s just as artificial as the Kashmir border dispute (mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map, land me some land, patch me a patch). It’s processed like a tight package of vacuum-sealed baloney, pronounced the right way, and not as if it’s a large city in the north of Italy. There are no silent gs where I come from – the Garden State. And no, I don’t say gnat. I say “fly.”

I get so mad sometimes I can’t help it. I read about these supposedly incensed individuals railing against straws or potholes. But do they care about either as deeply as I do? I doubt it. Have they ever cried over a semi-frozen root beer float, incapable of digging past the midpoint with their flimsy biodegradable straw? Sure, they can use a spoon, but at that point, why not just order ice cream? Have they ever ventured into a pothole larger than most studio apartments and wondered – with a few rugs and some better lighting, that a person could actually lay down roots there? Understanding, as I did, that root cellars in the olden days weren’t metaphors, but places where bulbs and rebellious youths were left to grow and prosper. 

I wonder what they are mad about. It’s probably nothing. They follow the trends. The fads. The breeze. Watching as their town weathervane creaks in the direction of a new target. The difference is that I am actually passionate about things that allegedly don’t matter. I hate when people can’t park between the painted lines in a supermarket lot. I don’t understand why waiters introduce themselves but never reveal their last name, when that’s all that matters. Should you want to report them or recommend them, their full name is necessary. It’s why I always ask for some ID before the ritual reading of the specials. When someone tells me they read a book, only for me to discover they merely listened to an audiobook during their glacial commute, I feel betrayed. I suddenly understand what George Washington must’ve felt like when he found out that Benedict Arnold was dancing with another partner. That isn’t reading any more than staring at a buffet is eating - regardless of how much drool is produced. 

Fake outrage makes my blood boil. It gets me riled up. Sweating to the point of changing my shirt. I end up showering three, sometimes four times a day, just to cope. Lastly, isn’t it outrageous with all the poor additions to the Oxford English Dictionary in recent years, that “nutrageous” remains on the outside looking in? Is it the British diet (or dentists) that doomed this word from the start? We could’ve used it last year, to describe a nutty, yet outrageous twelve months. I suppose candy bars aren’t considered intellectual enough for them.

Outrageous. 

The Blame Game

Come on down and see what’ve you won. But watch your step as you make your way to the stage. While no one on the crew is rooting for you to slip and fall, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Let’s say, in your exuberance, you do take a tumble and fracture a few ligaments on the deceptively harsh parquet. Have no fear. Should that happen, it won’t be your fault. It can’t be. Maybe on some other game show it would be. Just not here. Here, we’d help you place blame on the guilty party, even if no such individual or group exists. Maybe there was a lowly janitor excessively oiling the floor during a mid-show break, hoping for a cleaner sheen. What is this supposed to be? A studio or a bowling alley? The stairs themselves could not be up to code, too narrow for the routine downward gait of an average American. The point is this – you’ll be the one filing the lawsuit, not us. And you’ll be the one benefiting from it. 

Some are religious, others are litigious. We say: why not be both? Welcome, welcome. At the Blame Game, you never have to worry if it’s actually your fault. We take seemingly clear-cut cases and pin the blame on others, people or vague factors without much explanation. Nothing is too petty or far-fetched for us to consider.

Remember, folks, responsibility is someone else’s responsibility.

You’re probably wondering what exactly you’ve won. We take it you’ve heard of interns and assistants. Please, nod. 

Meet Reginald. Reginald? Come on down. Reginald is your very own live-in apologist. He goes with you wherever you go to provide a great deal of good cheer (and the man knows how to make a cocktail – isn’t that right, Reggie? Nod, please). He’s your ultimate cover, your most loyal supporter, your greatest defender. Never again will you lose an argument because it’s “he said, she said.” Meet the deciding, “he said.” No guest room? No problem. A futon should arrive in the morning and that’s all he requires. 

Thanks for playing, everyone. Now go forth and alibi.

Creative License

When I sit down to consume art (as well as a tub of wonderfully organic popcorn in an enormous microwave-safe plastic bowl) the first I do is not enjoy what’s in front of me. Instead, I notice what’s wrong, picking out errors and offenses like burnt kernels stuck to the roof my mouth. Those with inside knowledge of a subject are able to see through the dangerous imagination of an artist, immediately catching what’s wrong.

You may watch a movie about a literary agent, enjoying it for its strong dialogue and sultry love scenes. What you may not realize is that a sequence where the hero agent puts pen directly to page, scribbling notes all over the book of a prospective client is wildly inaccurate. They’d burn a book before defacing it. Agents show respect, adding tiny, barely legible comments on post-it notes, never affecting the book’s structural integrity with harshness of a ballpoint. You may adore an oil painting by some mustachioed Frenchman with a bunch of oranges resting on a great big farm table. But did you know that they don’t have oranges in France? They didn’t even have the color orange until 1910, believing the sun itself was merely yellow - just another cowardly star high up in the sky. 

Is there a foolproof way of avoiding disasters like this? We don’t want to live in a world where submarine captains are seen eating peas or dancing to polka when experts and insiders know the truth is much different. 

The solution is simple. There should be a DMV for creative types. A place (with lots of tough-to-scrub linoleum and scratched plexiglass) where people can go to prove they understand subjects before expressing themselves through art. There, along a bumpy service road, artists would gather in the hopes of receiving a highly sought-after creative license. Each state would have a modest allotment, divvied up to the famous and infamous alike. And unlike drivers who take a test at 16 years of age only to cruise unfettered for the rest of their lives, creative folks will be forced to renew their license every five years. Plus, it can be revoked at any time, for any reason. What's the point of having a tangled bureaucracy if you can't enforce rules capriciously?  

Think of the good it would do. CLs would prevent terrible podcasts, horrendous comedy specials, awful books (and some good ones, too). But if the military can tolerate collateral damage, why shouldn’t the arts? For too long, creativity meant someone alone in a room fantasizing to themselves and pushing the limits of good taste. The test won't be too bad either, with most of the questions about TikTok. However, your score isn't as important as the personal whims of your proctor. With a Department of Creativity, artists will have to wait in small rooms for the honor of getting five minutes with meet some guy named Sal. With his feet up on the desk and his mind elsewhere, he alone decides their creative fate. And I can’t see many downsides to this. 

Good luck, everyone. 

The Celebrated Lying Frog of Queens County by Samuel Clemency

As a favor to a friend of mine (it was repayment of sorts since he lent me a cache of toilet paper at the height of the shortage back in March), I inquired after the loquacious old lummox, Simon Cycler, who in turn, told me about my friend’s friend, Rev. Leonidas W. Grinley (who may or may not be a mythic figure like Moses or Moby-Dick), living out his days in Queens County. Out where the parking lot at the temporarily shuttered Citi Field, erstwhile Shea Stadium, meets Flushing Creek’s wiliest reeds. There I'd find answers amongst the gulls and the gutter fish, the garbage and the gas tanks. Some place a person can get mud-logged loafers for the price of a hot dog. I wonder: can a pedestrian hydroplane? I don’t see why not. This is out where the chop shops of Iron triangulators slice their wares for fun and profit. I was told to ask about this Grinley and Cycler would tell me about Jim Grinley, an eminently more interesting character.

I found Simon Cycler glued to his phone, his eyes watering due to gamified bliss, in the semi-collapsing garage of an ancient autobody shop. He was playing something, as far as I could tell, with coins and apex predators. I sat down, said hello, but he couldn’t be bothered to lift so much as his pinky finger in acknowledgment. He’s a funny old man, truth be told. When the game finished and the shark or whatever ate him whole, thus ending the contest, he perked up and delivered a rousing, albeit tardy hello. I asked him about Leonidas W. Grinley and what he knew about this notorious personage. That’s when he cornered me between the jukebox and the soda machine, rattling off an uninterrupted monologue, which is found below. I just let him go, listening to each idiotic word, never daring to utter so much as a syllable in response. 

There was this guy named Jim Grinley, a real animal lover, whom I met in ’87 or ‘88. Checker cabs weren’t all that uncommon in those days and I remember hailing a few with Big Jim. Grinley would sell leashes and biscuits to anyone who showed the slightest inclination towards the beastly kingdom. He had rat-pigeons, chicken gators, and tom-rats, everything you could ever want as a pet owner. But one day he caught a frog after a Mets game, took him and home and taught him everything he knew (which, in Grinley’s telling, wasn’t all that much. The man never made it past the 7^th grade). After a while, Grinley got the frog to speak, who, at this point, went by Don’ld. The only trouble was that Grinley couldn’t get the thing to tell the truth. Would you believe that whatever he did, whatever he instructed him to say, the frog would say and do the opposite? 

Don’ld told friends Grinley invited to the house for a friendly game of euchre that he was a billionaire, bedded supermodels, and owned casinos up and down the East coast. He claimed to have a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park and a sprawling estate in Florida. When Grinley would pull him aside and try to talk some sense into the amphibian, it was no use. Please don't embarrass me in front of company, he said. To Don’ld, it wasn’t lying, as much as breathing, which he did quite heavily, a clear indication of an undiagnosed heart problem.    

Eventually, Grinley sought to monetize his discovery, believing he had to make the most of the situation. Thinking, if all he does is lie, well, he ought to reap some of the benefits. So he and Don’ld traveled up and down and all across Queens County goading half-drunk bar patrons into tricking the frog into telling the truth. Most thought they could get him on a technicality, asking him what day it was, whether or not it was raining, or what was his name. It never worked and ol’ Grinley sure cleaned up. Don’ld lied quicker than you could drink. You’ve never seen a frog so mendacious and arrogant as he was, for he was just a liar. Still, Grinley was enormously proud of his frog, and why not? Goobers and doofuses traveled from everywhere just to see this frog lie. And lie he did. 

Grinley kept the frog in a gilded box with a gold toilet and a gold cot. Sometimes, inquisitive fools would ask about it.

“What’s in the box, Grinley?”

All that deceit started to influence Grinley.

“Oh, it might be a sausage sandwich or it might be a new iPhone. But it’s just a lying frog.”

“I bet I can get your frog to tell the truth.”

“You’re on. If there’s one thing this boy can do it’s lie.”

Don’ld climbed out of the box and stared at the man.

“What’s your name?”

“Don’ld,” said Don’ld.

“Where are you?”

“Queens.”

Grinley knew he was finished if Don’ld answered another question. What’s gotten into him? He was suddenly, and without warning, telling the truth. His name was Don’ld and he was in Queens. Grinley asked for a moment with the frog. Like Angelo Dundee in the corner, he gave it everything he had. But nothing worked. 

The guy leaned in between man and frog, asking, “where’s the bathroom?”

Don’ld pointed to the door. The guy chuckled and scooped up his money from the table, knowing he'd just won. 

 

Grinley was confused, staring at the frog, mouth agape and scratching his bald dome raw, when he noticed a sudden glaze over the frog's eyelids. Poison, it just had to be. With the help of a little charcoal, he got Don'ld to burp out a tiny vial of sodium Pentothal AKA truth serum. The guy was out of sight by now and much, much richer. 

“How do I look?,” asked Grinley.

“Like a million bucks,” said Don’ld.

Phew, he was lying again. All of a sudden Don'ld he took off out the door and after the guy, never seen by Grinley or anyone else again.

[This is where Simon Cycler heard his name being called. His car was getting towed.]

I had heard enough about Grinley and his lying frog for one lifetime.

“Where do you think you’re going?,” said Cycler.

"Home," I said.

“But I haven’t even told you about Grinley’s autotuned cow yet,” said Cycler, pleading with me to stay.

“Oh, enough of that,” I said, and bidding the doddering dope a genial good day, I left.

Written Off

  

When a character is written out of a hit TV show, the audience is generally left in a state of shock and outrage. Hurling the remote – if they still own one – at the wall into photos of grandma and grouper. That’s even if they’ve come to despise the character’s stupid catchphrases, wide mouth 16-ounce grin and ill-fitting clothes. This person, despite their intentions at the first airdate, is now a substantial part of their life. At least this is how it feels when it’s done right. What next? They could read a book, but that’s not going to happen, is it? The pages are too heavy, the font too small, and the character development much too slow. They want to be told what to think, not to tell. Interpreting something without vivid images is a nightmare. Ask Champollion if you don't believe me.

 

Critics aren’t immune from this state of unexpected confusion either. When a show they despise gets cancelled, thrown off the air by network executives playing God from their gaudy penthouse apartments, a part of them never fully recovers. They happily remember panning a show for its idiocy, but the day the curtain falls for the final time, a little piece of them falls, too. They are lost without bad programming. Anyone can dole a five star rave review, lecturing the little people on what makes Daniel Day-Lewis a master. But is that interesting? The guy working the graveyard shift at my corner bodega spilling Vitamin water and feeding cheese doodles to the store cat knows that DDL has something special. I don’t need some lettered doofus telling me that. But when I see someone doing a terrible job I need confirmation. “Was that bad acting?” I can’t go on instinct alone. I never went to school for it. I must defer to the experts.

 

We can’t let things go. We’ve grown accustomed to the Cousin Olivers of the world, adopting them as our own. Initially unwanted intruders, who are somehow welcomed into our homes each and every night. We’re always trying to recreate the past in some way. From the late 60s on, music journalists spoke of the Next Dylan, hoping to conjure a new character from the blue yonder. Or was it the New Dylan? The Nice Dylan? The Normal Dylan? The Notorious Dylan? The Nutty Dylan? When the real Dylan was still around, embodying all this and much more.  

 

They hate to admit all this, of course. They can’t stand admitting it. But they need these characters. They need them more than us. We don’t depend on them for our livelihoods. So who’s next?  

Go Fly a Kite

 

Were you expecting to keep the old thing in storage until a milder month appeared on your kitchen wall calendar celebrating legendary volcanic plugs? You were, weren’t you? A place like Strombolicchio is curiously left off a list of upcoming destinations for the wandering and lustful. The influential souls who can’t live without their passports. Squint as much as you want, but you won’t see any customs agents on Rockall. It’s not so easy to find a place with firm yet flat magma that offers an ideal surface for photographing the sunset through a flute of rosé. How are you meant to overcome the obstacles of eating a grain bowl in the middle of the North Atlantic, hundreds of miles from civilization in any direction? You’re not. You’re meant to starve. Or make nice with the circling gulls, convincing them to drop krill and phytoplankton into your open mouth in exchange for teaching them English literature. Sammy Taylor “Ham” Coleridge is as good a place as any to begin. As they say, avian illiteracy is an albatross – but it doesn’t have to be. And with your help, it won’t be.

After praying to St. Michael of the Needle for extra time, you were banking on summer as an appropriate season to make a triumphant return to your kite-flying ways. When has waiting for good weather helped a kiteman of yore? Did Ben Franklin say, “it’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man in the clouds the Ancient Greeks called Zeus is roaring?” If he did, it didn’t deter him from stepping out for some understandably moist experimentation. Where would the Wright Brothers be without kites? 

Still riding bicycles.  

You mustn’t complain of the wind from inside your home. It’s easy to remark on the whistling and howling on the other side of the wall. The time to fly is now – not later. Not in the warmer months when beaches are packed with lounging, tanning goobers and denim-wearing drone operators annoying everyone under the sun. 

So go fly a kite. You could use a hobby.

Interview: Beatrice Manichino

 

You remember seeing them in the window, don’t ya? If only you’d stopped for longer and struck up a conversation. Too bad your parents had different ideas, dragging you down the block, pulling you into department store after department store. Here, hold this bag, would ya? How come? This is where you wanted to go. This is who you wanted to see. Hoping against hope, praying against prayer, that you’d receive a response. At the time, anything was better than nothing. You weren’t asking for too much. A wave, a nod, a finger wag. You rubbed on the glass until a security guard aggressively tapped you on the shoulder, saying “move along, kid, move along. You're disturbing the merchandise.” The adults had shopping on the brain, not you. “Stop staring at the mannequins, honey, it’s creepy.” Maybe so. But inside those mannequins resided a being, with dreams and desires. Unfortunately for them, they were trapped in the store window of a Gimbels or worse (a Macy’s). I caught up with Beatrice Manichino in a local dumpster where she was partially submerged by garbage. I would’ve walked by not giving it much thought (I prefer dumps not dumpsters due to their magisterial grip on refuse) had her left arm not been jutting out, practically waving at me. I pulled her out, hosed her down, and sat for the next two hours talking to her as dog-walkers and commuters who witnessed the dialogue generously provided us both with much more than a meager six-foot berth. And I never did meet her better half. 

MTP: What have you been up to lately? 

 

BM: Besides living in a dumpster? 

 

MTP: Yes, sorry, I should’ve specified.

 

BM: It’s all right. You’re not the first to make that mistake. Unlike people, I don’t age. What ages are fashions, trends, styles. Eventually though, my look, whatever that means, fell out of favor. A lot of it is luck. I’ve been working for decades without interruption, so I can't complain too much.

 

MTP: Did you ever have a say in the clothes you wore? 

 

BM: What do you think? 

 

MTP: I honestly don’t know. I always assumed it was a collaboration between artist and subject. 

 

BM: There were some who appreciated what we brought to the display. Pierre Cardin, for instance, was a generous soul. I always joked with him that he was half-mannequin, since he got along with us better than most people. He would've married a mannequin if it were socially acceptable. I don't even know if it's something to broach today. But he tended to be the exception, not the rule.

 

MTP: I didn’t know Cardin, but heard good things. Rest in power.

 

BM: Uh huh.

 

MTP: He had a good run. What a run.

 

BM: Yes, he certainly did.

 

MTP: Where do you see the industry going? What worries you the most?

 

BM: I’m too old to worry. I had my fun and success. I’m more worried for the next generation of mannequins. They’re getting marginalized every day. With online shopping and the ascendancy of holograms, it’s not hard to imagine a world without them, where they're totally replaced. 

 

MTP: That’s a scary thought.

 

BM: Indeed. I came around at the end. But I feel lucky that I at least got a taste of the heyday before things really started to slip. 

 

MTP: What’s better than standing in a department store window for 24 hours a day? 

 

BM: How about standing in the Louvre? 

 

MTP: Good point. 

 

BM: Some of my ancestors got to work with Bernini, Michelangelo, you name it. If only.

 

MTP: They had it made.

 

BM: They were made better, too. Contrapposto allowed them to relax for a bit. Some got to sit down. When have you ever seen a mannequin lounging or relaxing? It was a different world back then. 

 

MTP: So you’re actually concerned about holograms?

 

BM: Should I not be? They don’t even feel the clothes. They flicker. Who knows. After the compacter finally gets me, perhaps I’ll come back as a hologram. I suppose progress isn’t all bad if that's the result.

 

MTP: What’s that smell?

 

BM: I think there was some sushi in the dumpster. 

 

MTP: Any advice for young mannequins trying to break into the industry?

 

BM: Don’t say no. In fact, don’t say anything. You might have to put on a clown outfit or work at a rest area. But it’s all experience. That said, if you can’t make it in fashion, I hear they’re always looking for crash-test dummies.

 

MTP: Grazie.   

Don’t you just love yelling “fire” in a crowded theater?

Or is that, "theatre," as a number of Broadway pretenders insist on saying? Sounds unduly British to me. Something you say over crumpets and your favourite poetry. What the Duke of Wellington longed for in his makeshift bivouac on the frosty Flemish frontier. 

It’s such a great way to meet new people. When you’re precariously balanced atop a plush movie seat cushion caked with gum, candy and decades of popcorn grease (can you believe it’s not butter?), with each substance buried deep into the fraying upholstery while engaged in a wild, shrieking frenzy right as the opening credits roll, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a friend. Fire is a cry for fun.

And you don’t even need a megaphone. How about the silence that only helps you make your point? The unearned respect most people give to movies makes little sense. The actors aren’t there to be offended, spitting and stammering their way through excessively expository colloquies. When that’s the case, I understand the reluctance to disturb people right to their faces. Not to mention how ponchos still aren’t considered proper theatergoing garb, despite the obvious saliva risk for the front row.

It’s the kind of political activism that anyone can support. There are no required texts, no homework. You’re not really trying to finish an argument. You’re just yelling cause you like yelling. 

It’s a classic for a reason. There are those who’d like to see cinematic disruptors yell things like "Heyoo," "Atta baby, Atta boy" or "Steve? I can't see you. Where are you sitting?" But there’s no history behind these particular phrases. They’re not ingrained in the culture. The Supreme Court never discussed them.

It’s exhilarating to get caught up in a Pamplonan-level stampede, but without all those meddlesome bulls. Yes, the occasional unsecured selfie stick, jutting out of a person’s backpack has potential to do serious harm. But it’s nothing like a horn. So you lose a couple a teeth. It happens. You were probably going to lose them anyway, given your steady diet of bonbons and king size colas over the years. 

Have you ever yelled "fire" in an empty theater? It’s just not the same. Sure, there’s inherent joy in yelling – why else would I do it on the highway mid-traffic, the beach mid-wave or the diner mid-meal? But the acoustics of most so-called suburban cineplexes are such that there’s always a mindless ticket stub taker at the ready to run in at the slightest unusual noise, saying, “sir, is everything okay in here?” Well, it was. 

I appreciate chants that begin, “Can I get an F?” A serious question for a serious person. Sometimes, there’s actually a fire. Maybe the concession kid got a little too greedy with the butter and set the whole stand ablaze. In these rare, but important instances I’m hailed (or is it heralded?) as a bona fide (or is it bonafide?) hero. By the time the fire department arrives, the screen's torched and the rows are adding to the conflagration. But these situations are exceedingly rare.

Ever heard of an amphitheater? Oh yeah, remember those? In Ancient Greece, it was not unusual for resourceful patrons to roast a few cocktail wienies for the Gods in the aisles while the actors up front frantically tried to remove an ugly wine stain from a rental toga. What? Did you really think tailgating was invented in State College, Pennsylvania? The cries of "fire" in environments like this are akin to howls of joy. In the open air, there’s no risk of smoke inhalation. The worst thing that happens is the haze creates a mild obstruction in certain corners of the venue. You're doing them a favor though. If Oedipus himself couldn’t bear to see the ending, then why should the audience?  

The Write Stuff

  

I’m a writer. You’d think such a lofty title would shield me from criticism. But I have news for you, it doesn’t. Because I suffer slights all the time. There’s hardly a day that goes by when I’m not parrying cruel indignities from a throng of jealous rivals. Recently, a close friend asked me if I “enjoyed the editing process” implying that my first drafts aren’t gospel, written without error or improvement - pre-packaged prose perfectly produced in Paradise. I was astonished. Nobody asked Bill Shakespeare what he thought of rewriting. I don’t make mistakes, okay? 

Speaking of gospels, there was an associate of mine, who shan’t remain blameless, emailing me the other day about a couple of typos he discovered in a long masterwork of mine. I was stupefied. Did John, Matthew, Mark or Luke go through a similar rigamarole when putting the finishing touches on the New Testament? I don’t think so.

Then there’s the anonymous commenter, JoaquinPhoenixTheJokester, seriously inquiring whether or not I’m inspired by others. You think Homer had to deal with this garbage? Good thing his blindness prevented him from reading the comments. But the man had ears, ears that were in fine enough shape to hear veiled barbs and casual insults.

I answered my phone yesterday – something I never do. A business associate had a proposition for a partnership. Instead of saying I always work alone, I said “maybe”, my go-to response to such questions. She wondered if I had the bandwidth to take on another sixteen projects, lecturing me on how the day is 24 hours, not the 48 required to get these jobs done. I was stunned, mortified, in fact. Was she honestly saying that I didn’t understand how the rotation of the earth affects my bottom line? She just said, “don’t bite off more than you can chew.” This really sent me through the roof – straight through the ceiling, picking little bits of insulation out of my hair for the next few hours. But I had the time to explain. Did I bite off more than I could chew at Peter Luger’s? The time I stuffed a 64 oz ribeye down my gullet like it was a leftover Juju bean in the crystal dish of a celebrated Upper East Side podiatrist's waiting room? I don’t think so. I brought my own blender that evening. How about when I insisted on eating the bone and not just the marrow, as a nod to my cave-hopping ancestors? The waiter said they didn’t have the chisels and hammers I requested.  

Like everyone else, she doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand that what made Cervantes successful wasn’t nit-picking hangers-on asking questions like, “does it have to be a windmill?” Someone else, residing on the outskirts of my friend group wanted to know if I needed any help. That if I did, simply raise my hand. I was flabbergasted. My ability is infinite, my humility is nil. The only thing that limits my time are other people asking questions. How many masterpieces could I have produced in the time it took to fight off these idiotic queries? The world may never know, but it’s that much poorer for suffering in silence. 

I’ll do my best to make it up to humanity. Before you ask me something, no matter how innocuous it seems, think of any insanely successful writer you know from history and wonder if you’d level the same question at them. Rethink before you speak. 

Stop the Spiel

  

You say your car is leaking a reddish brown liquid that may or may not have the same consistency as barbecue sauce? The same taste, too, huh? Smell? That ain’t motor oil, my friend. I don’t know how it got there. But don’t take it in to the dealership. You’re not crazy, are you? They can’t help you there. They’ll give you the rote ordinary spiel for dealing with unforeseen vehicular issues, pinning the blame on you, the owner. It's a classic method of giving themselves spiritual absolution and you liability. You should’ve known better than to let a man named Uncle T-Bone, wearing brisket-covered overalls and a cowboy hat climb under the hood. That’s what they’ll say. How it’s your fault. Never let strangers touch your engine, son. That sort of thing. In between ripping you off, do you think they’re going to have fresh brioche laying around, just to sop up the mess? 

No dealership I've waited at as ever been that prepared. 

 

What you need is a sauce guy. Someone who knows the source of the problem and understands how to monetize it. A person with clear bottles and a clearer conscience. You weren’t planning on going into business, but now that your galoshes are sweet and tangy, what’s the harm? There will be doubters. People who claim they’ll never use a condiment that was this close to an engine block. Yet many of these yammering scolds will eat dirt-covered potatoes recently exhumed from a nearby vacant lot. A place rife with ferality of all kinds. That's okay, but a little sauce on the cylinders is a problem. Don't ask for consistency, because you won't get it.

 

You don’t need an explanation. You don’t need a five-paragraph persuasive essay about how Enzo Ferrari had a similar problem with Bolognese meat sauce when he was a young man cutting corners in Modena. You need a substantial cash injection. If only cash was flowing from your chassis instead of flavor.

 

People always want to tell you why, believing somehow that it helps. When that’s the last thing any sane person wants. Don’t explain to me how years of illegal barbecue distribution wound up in the autobody shops of known bootleggers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. How mayonnaise spoils in the heat, ketchup looks too much like blood, and extra virgin motor oil is an idea whose time has not yet arrived. You want to know how much it’s worth, how much it costs and how long the whole thing will take. Spare me the details, okay? It's nearly dinnertime. 

The Best and the Bitest

  

When it comes to falling asleep, promptly and without reservation, everyone has their own preferred method. Some count sheep. Others in the farming community, shear sheep they share their bed (and lives) with, making sweater after sweater until the zees (and allergies) eventually catch up with them. Then there’s opening the bedside drawer of sedatives, concocting the perfect recipe for a solid seven, climbing dangerously close to the hereafter for some much-needed shuteye. Like many civic-minded Americans, I turn on C-SPAN and watch congress do their thing to drift off to slumber. Right before my eyelids shut like a rusty bank vault, I have the same thought: “is this the best we can do? Are these people the best we have?”

In short, yes. We, as in people, send our finest to the marbled carpets of Washington, DC. They are homo sapiens sapiens deserving of a third and final sapiens. That's wisdom. But congress could be better. How? You might not be following. That’s okay. A few people have cancelled their subscription and sent their computers out a fourth story window by now. No worries. Read it on your phone then. I’ll give you a second to reboot.

Why are we only sending people to represent us? The country is crawling with critters and creatures craving to be categorized as citizens. A good number of us, even those who call themselves history lovers, tongue kissing the dogeared copies of the country’s founding documents in private, don’t know everything. They don’t know, for instance, that up until the 1920s, dozens of dogs served in congress. Did you know that? The first congressdog was a Georgian and Civil War veteran, J. Rupert Dogboy (originally Fido, he changed his name for the campaign. It’s hard to register for a political run without a last name). Wouldn’t you relish watching a filibustering fool lose his train of thought as a canine colleague tore at his exposed khaki cuff? There are tons of ways to object to something you find reprehensible, but few are more powerful than barking. 

Dogs aren’t perfect. They can be bought, just like people, with treats and head pats. But I’d rather see lobbyists stacked on pallets of Iams and Eukanuba, sorting out their remaining Petco rewards points instead of dealing with another banker for another cash bribe. No animal is faultless, so there were several notable biting incidents and a few urinations, one famously ruining Henry Cabot Lodge’s expensive right loafer. What few recognized at the time was how such behavior amounted to legitimate nonverbal objections. After Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner with a cane, there were no calls to ban human beings from serving. Maybe there should've been. I can only imagine what an entirely canine congress would prioritize. Deadly fires would fall precipitously, with a sudden and massive federal expansion in hydrants. That’s but one example. We’re only left to wonder what else.

I know I’d feel a lot more comfortable knowing that Dogboys and Poochsteins were there, holding our species accountable for a change. Come to think of it, perhaps we’re already close. Have you seen some members of congress? Though many are more equine than canine, more reptilian than retriever, whatever they are – they’re not completely human. That much I’m sure of. And with that, there’s hope.