Impostor Primavera

From what I can tell, impostor syndrome is an industry affliction of epidemic proportions. Everywhere you look, someone is suffering from pangs of insecurity, clangs of inadequacy and fangs of abject terror at the prospect of being outed as an outright fraud. To harangue an impostor takes minimal effort but yields maximal joy. Inside broom closets, under mouse traps, buried in crystal bowls of colorful jellybeans, there are people who feel like they don’t belong. It could be a lie on their job application, a half-truth told during the interview process or usually, it’s all just in their head.

Therefore, it’s understandable that you figured I’m yet another self-identified impostor struggling his way through advertising. But you’d be wrong. 

Right in time for Easter, my inclinations are more messianic than anything else – with a smattering of rabbit-footed charm. The reason is simple. I stayed in New York City in 2020 when a great many people fled the area. I had a car and I could have left anytime. I did leave sometimes though. Look, I wasn’t there the whole time – it’s not like I was an essential worker. I found a second home upstate, a leaky houseboat in Maine, a motorless VW Vanagon roomy enough to support a growing family. But aside from that, I stayed true to my roots as a New Yorker.

 

I camped, I bivouacked, I slept on the side of the road. All told, I spent approximately two full days in the city last year. But New York, as Billy Joel tells us, isn’t a city, a state, or even a real place, but a state of mind. It's not a sewer, a cesspool, or a haven for base criminality. It's just a thought, an idea, a way of being. 

For instance, there are people who live there their entire lives, never venturing beyond the five boroughs. However, that alone doesn’t make a person a New Yorker. Those people are the real impostors, thinking their birth certificate and history of paying taxes somehow serves as validation. To me, true New Yorkers don’t even live in the city. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. They shouldn’t.

 

They're already on Mars. Or in Jersey. 

Opening Up the Office

 

Soon (very soon) we’re all (some) gonna (may) be needled up and ready to dance. My one wish, if the Genie isn’t too busy with other miscellaneous requests like guaranteeing free return shipping on orders over 50 pounds, is that open offices open up even more. Because I’ve had it with walls – crude and literally hollow barriers to deep thinking. You could spend hours upon hours of the working day searching for a stud or sturdy I-beam so your fist safely goes through the drywall. But after a few rounds of feedback, even that gets old.

What creativity requires is unobstructed sky. Sky you can reach out and grab with both hands. So touch a cloud or two if you’re feeling adventurous. Inhale a bit of the jet-stream, too. But how? The best most offices do nowadays is let us partially crack a window for a passing nod to the fresh air. 

When I see a partially constructed building with a hanging string of work lights and loose Tyvek wrap flapping in the wind, I think, “stop right there.” If I rode a bicycle (I don’t, I won’t and I would never) I’d ring a series of bells and whistles to alert any other pedestrians that the half-finished monstrosity they are passing without a passing glance is worth more than their time, it’s worth their livelihood. What a building like this offers is a chance to both feel free and feel the whirring buzz of casual drone traffic.

Now that’s openness on a grand scale. An open office without seats, tables, or walls lets everyone be themselves. I understand that an environment like this isn’t for everyone. But it should be. We figured out amphitheaters long ago and yet, out of a fear of birds, nature or whatever, we’ve enclosed these structures, shutting them off from the rest of society. Why does a violinist need a roof to hit the right note? They don’t. All they need is a stage. Same goes for you. 

It’s okay to wear a harness during your first couple weeks as you acclimate to the open office. After that though, watch the edge. 

Over My Head

I’m about 5’ 8” – on a good day. A little taller when standing on a foot stool or strapping on a pair of circus stilts. But those days are behind me - the circus, that is. The sad truth is that my height was once average. Not today. I don’t know if it’s the stuff they pump our food with to grow tomatoes the size of weather balloons or all the glowing nuclear waste permeating every parcel of soil. Whatever it is, something’s definitely up. And it’s us.

People are just taller nowadays. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was no more than 5’ 3”? His hat alone was a good 18, 19, maybe 20 inches tall. Only he happened to live during a time when most people were well under 5’. Back then, the average American could stand on his tiptoes in the middle of a train track and not suffer so much as a scratch. The cars simply barred on and above. Many did it because electric fans hadn’t been invented yet and the racing locomotive provided some refreshing, albeit recycled air. 

I can’t make sense of the issues of the day. The reason is simple. Most things sail right over my head. To understand anything, even the most basic political or social tenet, having some stature helps. For an idea to enter you it has to land right on target. That means directly in the face. Between the eyes is ideal, but you can still grasp something should it bounce off your cheek or smack you in the forehead. What you can’t have is it fly a good foot, foot and a half above your hairline. When theories are swirling around in the air, those of us too short to notice end up with a faulty grip on reality. 

That’s my problem. I’m not asking you to send milk crates, phonebooks or high heels to better comprehend healthcare, free trade or the efficacy of vaccines. I asking for something else.

What I have to do, what I must do, is lower the current level of discourse. Who says it can't get worse? You might think that’s impossible, but it’s not. I have to bring everyone else down, convince basketball players to sit on their hands and play the game from a crouching position. The one thing I’ve never understood, perhaps due to my size, is why it’s called basketball – emphasis on basket. What kind of basket has a hole in the bottom? Imagine shopping for groceries, grabbing the ripest plums, the sweetest melons, only to arrive at the register with nothing but net. 

To hell with the high road. Since hell is, ya know, well below. Right?

The Inanimaniacs: “No Desk, No Reward”

 

Admit it, you’re biased when it comes to animates versus inanimates, preferring scurrying creatures to stationary furniture. Too bad for you then. Because today’s episode finds us within the office of an unnamed captain of industry, an anonymous baron of business. There are photos of the walls on the walls – no evidence of who this titan of technology is, lest his enemies use it to their advantage. This tale has nothing to do with rabbits or ducks, pigs or farm animals of any kind, instead focusing on the existence of a lonely and unassuming desk. 

From typewriters to computers, Dick Desk has seen it all. His surface was once polished with obsessive regularity. Not anymore. He’s lost some of his initial luster, watching powerlessly as his varnish disappeared. Have you ever woken up with a mysterious injury? As you stumble to the bathroom to freshen up and grab your toothbrush, you notice a slight slice on the tip of your index finger. You don’t remember messing around with the sharp edge of a soup can before bed. You don’t recall any midnight knife play. You have no recollection of any activity that would have removed a chunk of flesh from your most trusted digit. You chalk it up to sleepwalking, or a practical joke from your cousin, a cutlery fanatic and current houseguest. You move on with your life and accept that you’ll never know the truth. The finger will heal and that’s that. 

On this dewy morning, Dick Desk experienced a similar phenomenon. Only he knew that he couldn’t have been the culprit. Although Dick was a desk made of wood, mostly oak in case you care, he was not meant for nature. Like a domesticated pet who’s spent too long pampered by humans, Dick Desk could never return to the wild forests of his ancestors. He had a recurring nightmare that he was in an overgrown rainforest, stuck in the mud. Somewhere he could and would quickly rot. The beetles and termites would feast from his legs on up before devouring him whole. Then he’d jump up, shrieking loud enough to roust the staplers and pencil sharpeners who called his woody expanse their home.   

It was a coaster ring, and it wasn’t there the night before. His sworn enemy, a junkyard philistine, Salvatore “Sal” Vage had been by though. The impressions left on the surface bothered Dick. It wasn’t just that an assortment of coasters were always within reach. It was that this must’ve been a message. Sal had spent months trying to convince the Captain to sell the desk and open up the office space. Two sawhorses and a flat old door would do the trick. Plus, out of pure generosity, he’d take Dick off the Captain’s hands. It’s not like Dick was worth anything at this point. Look at the scuffs and scratches. The coaster ring was a power play. But what could Dick do? He was a desk. 

Sal snuck in that morning and began unscrewing Dick’s legs that were bolted tightly to the floor. He reassured Dick the process would be over soon and not to fight the inevitable. But the windows were left open. The Captain liked that sort of atmosphere, it counteracted the dust from the books he never read. As Sal began to unscrew one leg he slipped on the dew, cracking his skull on the ornate trim. 

Sal woke up in the emergency room with a mild head injury, no dumber than before. The Captain called 911 as soon as he got to the office. So for today at least, Dick Desk lives on, safely and securely, under a pile of bills, receipts and a couple thank you cards. Maybe tomorrow he’ll be pulverized into woodchips for an elementary school’s playground. But not today. Because today, he’s still a desk.   

Leggo my Ego

Whenever something truly horrible happens – like your Internet goes down for a few evening hours disrupting what had been a carefully planned binging barrage of terribly trashy television – it’s critical to make the situation predominantly about you. That’s even if you’re on the edge of the outage, where your connection is no more than a bit spotty.

I once overheard people talking about this tragic train derailment in Upper Canada. No one was hurt but all the pancake mix on board was lost, completely covering the trackside boreal forest in tasty specks of snow white dust. Yet all I could think about was how I’d ridden trains before. I’d played them with them, too. “Lionel” was the name of an imaginary acquaintance (we weren’t friends since there was a significant age difference). He, a grumpy conductor making one last transcontinental run before retiring to a big cabin overlooking Great Bear Lake, and me, a child of 6 or 7 who liked to play with trains. I kept thinking about all my coffee table books with glossy black and white photographs of locomotives. And then there were all the Sunday mornings I ate pancakes, despite living in an era that shamelessly touted the weekend waffle.

There was this other time I read about a cruise ship sinking off the coast of Sri Lanka, which at the time it was still known as Ceylon. No one was hurt, but every jar of imported maple syrup stowed away somehow went overboard creating the disturbing image of glass amber buoys, bobbing up and down, as the boat slowly made its way to the ocean floor. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the times I walked past the syrup aisle nearly grabbing a jar before glancing at the remarkably high sugar content. I regretted this though. Syrup lasts, so there’s no need to slurp it in one sitting. I’d never been on a cruise ship, but I peppered my speech with the word “cruise” and other nautical phrases. Where other people said boss, I said, “thanks, captain” regardless of rank. The news affected me greatly, especially considering my kayaking background. I’d gently capsized my boat several times in the calm waters of a serene New England harbor town.

And how can I forget the time I saw a story about a plane that skidded off the runway at a quaint, quiet airport in Pierre, South Dakota. No one was hurt, but the sum total of the coffee beans stowed below the cabin blanketed the tarmac. The smell was something else, according to the first responders at the scene. It was winter, so the natural process of icing coffee was done by locals traipsing onto the premises after all the investigators had gone home. I drink coffee. While I hadn’t been to either Dakota, I did watch Deadwood. That should count for something. It was tough to watch, the developing situation not the HBO series, knowing my appreciation of coffee and snow. 

If all these tragedies had occurred on the same day, in the same place, you'd be totally set for breakfast. Some might've called it a miracle. Whenever something happens, whatever it is, there’s always a personal angle of mine to mine. You should try it sometime. 

Pro Creation

  

Lots of close friends are boarding the Procreation Express – having children as a way of keeping their shaky line relevant in the years to come. You can’t blame them for it. There are plenty of fine reasons for a person to willingly welcome in the next generation to their home, giving them keys, passwords and yes, the secret word. 

Children are small. At least that’s how they start. It’s important for parents not to waste the early years on too much walking and talking. Education comes in handy, as does true bipedal acumen, but there are so many nooks in a modern house that need addressing. Adults have to bend over or worse yet – pay for a professional to troubleshoot a tough problem. When all along, kids can easily fit into small spaces and most of them never even need to bend down. They are closer to the ground, and thus, can let you know what it looks like behind the sink. Plus, they’re family, so you can trust them a little more than some plumber with a union card and a pile of rusty wrenches, belching his way through the day. 

Children like to fetch things. When you want something in the fridge, a kid should get it first – why’s that? Again, they see the fridge at eye level, whereas you’re at best viewing its contents at an uncomfortable 45 degrees. I ache just thinking about it.

This kid is your second chance at on-the-field success. Maybe you were a respectable athlete in your day. Maybe you didn’t make varsity because of a set of unforeseen circumstances like receiving a placebo anabolic steroid from a rival teammate. Now’s the time to get them ready for a life devoted to hitting a ball or running around. For every child prodigy, like a Mozart or a Tiger, there are thousands of people you’ll never hear about. So dust off that nine-iron or that oboe underneath the drop cloth in the garage, and let them go to work. No one’s truly a failure until they fail at something. Remember that. 

Before you test out any pet theories on the public - like why true universal healthcare includes extraterrestrials (they are part of our universe, aren’t they?) – try them on your kids first. Honestly, that's a concept they'll get right away. What are kids if not alien interlopers?

Being your offspring, they are less likely to disagree with your assertion that wheels ought to be reinvented. If you’re doing your job, they only facts they’ll have are the ones you provide them. As they get older, they may wish to think for themselves. This is something you must work diligently to prevent. No one wants another contrarian in the home, questioning your motives and ideas – asking why vegans are put on a moral pedestal when plants are unquestionably alive. Keep them sheltered. Read to them for as long as you can stand it. Once they read, your days are numbered. 

Education and exercise pale in comparison to fashion. Has there ever been a style you wanted to embrace but couldn’t stir up the courage to do so? A hat you wanted to wear, a mustache your wanted to sport. Why not test it out on your child? They can try it out in the incubator that is grade school and then report back. There’s no use having both of you look like fools. Anyway, kids are resilient. They’ll get through it. Adults get fired from jobs, kids do not. 

There are other reasons to have kids. But only the psychopathic contempt for sleep comes to mind. 

Why the Justin Long face?

Hey, Justin Long, can you hear me now? I sure hope so. I’ve tried getting in touch with you without any success. It appears my industrial megaphone (“perfect for making a scene," "ensure your protest isn't an amateurtest") wasn’t as strong as the rave customer review claimed. Here’s hoping you get it another way. Seeing you totally comfortable in your own skin – I shudder to picture the alternative – comes as both a blessing and a surprise. You were known as the pompous Macman, famous from those old commercials that someone, somewhere, someway remembers. You looked down on PC culture, containing enough inner smugness for Cupertino and beyond.

Things are different now. You’re a changed man, right? You’re not acting anymore. You’re just living and speaking your truth. Okay, so it took you 20 years to come around to the good side. Everyone moves at their own pace. Your heroic decision extends far past the world you know into a wilderness of grander possibilities, flowering like a Bush in bloom (thinking post-presidency when he took up painting and baths, though not always at the same time).  

The question remains: where do we go from here? I have some ideas. They aren’t new ideas, of course, since new ideas don’t exist. What we call new, are just old ones repackaged. It makes the process of coming up with them significantly less complicated though. You find an idea you like and figure out a way to present it as new. Today, no one wants a pet rock, but there might be room for either a stone companion or a pebble life partner. You never really know until you test the water. Which, in the case of rocks, does a good job breaking up pond ice that may not have fully melted despite rising temperatures. 

But we’re not here to discuss pond scum or lily pads, mangroves or thermal vents, we’re here to discuss ads. Mikey, the Life Cereal kid, he must be 85. I hope his false teeth don’t give him any trouble, because he should be expecting a weighty shipment of Cheerios any day now. The ETrade baby is in his 9^th year of college dangerously obsessed with bitcoin. Then there’s the Geico Cavemen, who’ve shed their loyalty as well as their body hair, prepared to go with State Farm. The Elves formerly known as Keebler are newfound Oreo apologists. Polar Bears drink Pepsi. And as an artful advertiser appearing asymmetrically accomplished around amazing ads, alternatives are apparently attractive. 

All right?

 

Back in the Swivel

 

With most everyone needling up in the country – scooping vaccines by the fistful – there’s a great deal of talk around what returning to a physical office will look like. How it will change the status quo and how we must all pitch in to successfully adapt. Pardon me if I don’t see things quite like this. I rarely do. 

Let’s say we do return to the office by the end of summer, reacclimating ourselves to a forgotten commute. Then what? Do we pretend everything is normal again? Do we begin milling by the printer complaining about ink or lack of laser luster? Do we walk over to someone’s desk in lieu of writing an actual email for a routine “how ya doin”? The bent elbow style of looming that makes everyone below you incredibly uncomfortable.  

For one thing, when I finally set foot in my office, I’ll have blinders on. Really. Because I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a horse. That horse, a stunning thoroughbred named Twinkle Hooves, calls Aqueduct Racetrack home. Over the years, he’s accumulated a few extra sets of blinders, one of which I’ll wear in the office to prevent excessive interaction with coworkers. I might as well take a feedbag off his hooves, since I shall be cherishing my lunchtime solitude. There won’t be any random burrito bowls or salad lines for me. I’ll eat whatever’s in front of me, with the help of Twinkle’s mealtime accoutrement. However, my tools won’t stop there. No, not by a longshot. 

I’ve also procured a few extra sets of heavy-duty earmuffs, the kind of thing worn by airport professionals (airpros?) skillfully guiding jumbo jets safely to their chosen gate. The bright colors will be enough of a deterrent for most people looking for an afternoon chat. I may even bring some of those orange glow stick things to subtly move someone onto another cubicle. 

If you’re noticing a theme, good for you. You haven’t lost the ability to notice the absurdly obvious. As it might be clear by now, I don’t want any more interactions than I need to have. Should a coworker hover by my desk like a silly buzzing drone, I’ll tell them in uncertain terms, using aviation vernacular (gross navigational error), that they are interfering dangerously with my immediate airspace. Want to talk to me? Send an email like everyone else. In the old days, there was too much spontaneity in office life. Too many quick coffee conversations and random meditations on the previous night’s sporting most exciting event. And I can’t have that. 

Not now, not after all I’ve been through. Keep walking when you spot me in the office, unless you’re a horse named Twinkle Hooves, which in that case I hope you’ll accept a cashier’s check as payment. 

Spring Fake

While it’s taken several months to get used to the rhythm of life on campus, I’m starting to get my c-legs. At the outset, my wrist muscles were embarrassingly out of shape for midnight frisbee tosses. A commitment to hacky sack has helped get my limbs back in working order. As you may recall, I took a lucrative job teaching at Chair-Latin College – doing so solely for financial reasons. The winter still lingers on in Chug Harbor, the strange ghost town enveloping the school. The inevitability of spring has brought additional good news for the student body. The college, deep in debt from propping up questionable foreign regimes, sold its naming rights for a princely sum. Chair-Latin College will henceforth be known as Turbo Tax University. Which isn’t bad timing, seeing as April 15^th is less than a month away.

With spring break coming, now’s as good a time as any to take one’s temperature. Perhaps some of the upper class will sneak off for beachside bacchanals – but I doubt it. If there’s a common ethic that bonds our students, it’s their shared terror of everything and everyone. It’s printed right on the school seal – Timor Docet, Latin for “fear teaches.” And it’s why my Asteroid Preparedness class shattered all attendance records. They knew that by missing it – as the dinosaurs had – they were leaving themselves far too vulnerable for simple picnics and strolls in the park. Plus, I gave out these wonderful individually numbered hard hats on the first day. Those were a big hit. 

The only trouble that arose during the winter semester was being called to the disciplinary committee. Trust me when I say it was all a huge misunderstanding. 

In my classes, I didn’t bother learning any of their names. My reasoning was that what if there were two Mikes, three Steves, four Dianes? What then? I couldn’t have that. So I did the only rational thing – I referred to each student by their “character name.” Mike 1 became “Moron.” Steve 2 became “Simpleton.” Diane 3 became “Dimwit.” I did my best to retain their first initial to make it easier on their classmates. Obviously, that wasn’t always possible. Someone like Horatio, a natural born coward, was not going to get the benefit of an “H.” Some people didn’t appreciate being singled out and reduced in this way. I ended up doing the same thing for the members of the committee, led by a goon, a coot and a literal pinhead. They had no rebuttal for my pointed remarks and dropped the inquiry posthaste. All I got was a slap on the wrist, which unfortunately took me out of frisbee competition for three to four weeks. 

Overall, it’s been a great experience. I might even take up the University President’s offer and bring a small coterie of students to Grand Cayman for a little sheltering during tax season. I’m sure we’ll get along famously. The students have taught me nothing. But that’s not their job, is it? Their job is to wash my car, pick up my laundry and generously tip my doorman when I forget to. They aren’t here to learn. I treat each class as an executive assistant incubator. Surely one of them will heed the call. If not, they will see it reflected in the grades.

Solip’s Fables: The Corpus and the Hair

The day started off like any other. With fifteen minutes of stretching followed by fifteen minutes of shrieking. There’s an abandoned church (abandoned by whom is a good question since God is surely still lounging inside its echoey halls absent drowsy parishioners) outside my window. I accept that my morning regimen is complete when every bird resting on the roof has flown away, unsettled by successive yells shaking their feathers. Sometimes, on days of unmitigated exaltation, my yelps are enough to disrupt local air travel. 

Then I left the house for a pre-dawn stroll. At a nearby park, I noticed several hilariously uprooted trees. Wishing to make a sarcastic comment I quickly scanned my surroundings for any sign of life. There was a man about my age standing off to the side, playing with a disagreeable strand of long curly hair. Before going any further, I should add that the hair was his own. 

“Have you seen the latest forecast?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“It calls for heavy winds, even heavier than last night” I said, pausing for a second or two. Dramatic effect, okay? “So we’re not out of the woods yet.”

He smiled, clearly appreciative of a pointlessly stupid remark amid such arboreal carnage. 

“Do I know you? You look really familiar,” I said

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“There’s something about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it,” I said. And I wouldn’t, not exactly. The laws of the land frown on stranger touching, pandemic or not. 

“See ya ‘round,” I said.

He started to leave, skipping over the power lines that should've been cleared the night before.

“If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, gimme a ring.”

“Where’s that?,” he said.

“Don’t you know?”

He left, sprinting through traffic and into the breeze - gone. A wraith, or something. I started to walk back, wondering how long it would take me to make fire from a couple of downed branches. Now I wished those power lines were live. Then it hit me. A tree limb about the size of my forearm. I knew where I’d seen the longhaired gentleman before. He was me. I was him. I started to notice myself everywhere. A squirrel had my laugh. An ant had my scowl. A piece of wet bark had my complexion – after, not before, moisturizing. A seriously important detail.

The world is a painful and complicated place. But you’re never alone when everything is about you. 

The Cat's Meowmoirs

 

After years of prodding, months of preening, weeks of posturing, days of primping, hours of pluming, minutes of producing, and seconds of procrastinating, my cat has decided to write her memoirs. Well, not exactly. The manuscript is already written and all that’s needed now is a willing publisher (which we think we have in Random Mouse). It’s been shoved away in the bottom of a desk drawer packed with toys, treats and the intrusive spider exploring the four corners of a file cabinet. The title is still, like a tantalizing ball of yarn, very much up in the air. Paw Prints, Bite Marks, C is for Cat, Hairballin’. For what it’s worth, I’m partial to Scratchin’.

I haven’t had much involvement in the writing process despite my supposed mastery of the language. So my role was largely ceremonial, getting the opportunity to read the book at the same time as her more famous, celebrity friends. Clooney, Pitt, and one of those well-fed witmen wheezingly waddling to the couch of a low-rated late-night show. 

The stories within the manuscript are standard feline fare – why drink water when you can sleep, showers versus licking oneself, plus a compelling case for attending grad school. While it’s territory that’s been treaded before, I think my cat has a different angle, one deserving an audience. The trouble is that animal memoirs fail unless they capture a large portion of the pet population. Basically, if dogs don’t read it, you’re finished. You might as well go home and play with your shoelaces. 

This is all well and good in theory, but I don’t speak dog, my cat doesn’t speak dog. So we did the only sensible thing – we hired a dog to translate the manuscript to reach a broader segment of the populace. Had I known what this would stir up I never would’ve suggested it. You have to understand, that in the cat community, selling out means involving a dog in any way in something you're doing. That’s all it takes. I found this great translator Rex Van Dogk– half dog, half Dutch. But that apparently wasn’t good enough to appease my cat’s detractors. They still dragged her through the mud, which as a cat, she enjoyed immensely. But that’s hardly the point. The principle is that it should’ve never happened like this. The publisher walked away after the kerfuffle, having no stomach for controversy.

I even had to stop writing this to play with her, hoping to take her mind off the events of the last week. She’ll get over it, having already accepted that the best the book can do is achieve cult status among a curious human contingent. Do cats and dogs really hate each other or is that another lie sold to us by Hollywood and Madison Avenue? She’ll get over it, cats usually do. In fact, she’s already onto the next project. Aren’t cats resilient? She’s just cornered a moth in the cupboard. Hope she has better luck getting it than getting published. 

Out of Toon

Role models aren’t always easy to come by. And the best ones, like the good and noble Haile Selassie, don’t necessarily understand the reasons behind their own notoriety. They’re not out there to become a false prophet, standing up (or sitting down depending on the strength of their knees) for something they don’t believe in or comprehend. But the secret to finding role models – since we all could use some guidance, especially as lost children – is knowing where to look. 

Personally, I found most of mine seated atop a scalding radiator, inches from the TV screen, letting the alleged entertainment enter me unfiltered and uncontextualized. I wasn’t watching cartoons to laugh. I was watching them to live. Hindsight is a tricky thing, adding clarity to years gone by. I used to think that cartoons were righteous and moral. I know now how wrong I was to follow their shaky lead. It took years of deprogramming and professional psychiatric help to see just how far these Saturday morning villains had led me astray.

I was in my late 20s when I learned that a person couldn’t sprint several hundred feet off a steep cliff into thin air without falling - so long as they didn’t look down. I believed speech impediments were hilariously funny until someone recently dithabuthed me of that pernithith idea. And just yesterday, I finally accepted that when animals do talk they aren’t full of wisecracks or riotous quips, but rather, like all sentient beings, profoundly overwhelmed by their place in the universe, marked by deep ennui. Here are some of the cartoon characters I once mistakenly loved. Good thing I’ve come to my senses, even if it took several decades and relentless ridicule from friends and employers to get here. 

Drugs Bunny

A pusher, a dealer, a doctor – this high rabbit of pharmacology left the forest focused on success regardless of the anguish left in his wake.

Hagiography Duck

After years spent working in failed states as a lobbyist, political fixer and quasi-warlord, this canard of canards, decided to devote his career to penning idealized portraits of the truly worst people society has to offer. 

Industrial Parky Pig

A rapacious contractor, leveling the once gorgeous American pastoral landscape, in favor of endless strip malls and double-wides.

Poseur Fudd

A man without his own personality, copying everything he does from others, even down to the weird way he speaks. 

Screedy Bird

Modeled after Martin Luther, this tiny yellow bird was full of lectures and diatribes – no audience too small, no topic too stupid. 

Sequester the Cat

A hermit feline, who neither hunts or claws, nor scratches or paws – choosing to live in feral obscurity avoiding all animal contact.  

Yopedantry Sam

A college professor who’s never met a sabbatical that didn’t need to be indefinitely extended.

That's nothing, folks. 

It's Almost Cherry-Picking Season

When there’s something I want to say but can’t quite grasp of how to say it, there’s only one place to visit. Where there’s an argument I want to make but don’t have enough of the basic facts, there’s only one destination to consider. When there’s a theory I want to test but don’t understand any of its precepts, there’s only one way to progress. And when there’s a point I need to make but can’t seem to find the right words, there’s only one thing left to do. Pick a cherry. Should you be at a similar intellectual loss, flapping between the twin gusts of confusion and embarrassment, might I suggest locating the nearest cherry tree for a closer examination?

Cherry-picking is a healthy lifestyle and a foolproof rhetorical strategy – since I haven’t changed my mind yet and don’t plan on it.

Making friends is a harrowing exercise, which involves sifting through resumes, reviewing letters of recommendation, and interviewing character witnesses. The whole process is extremely exhausting and could have the side effect of causing someone to long for their previous situation, utterly friendless and totally alone. What if I told you there was a better way? Once you find something good about someone, stop looking, stop digging and simply choose to be satisfied. If you’re out at dinner and they leave a sizable tip, take that as a sign of their upstanding moral character and ignore the rest. In other words, pick a cherry instead. 

You want alien life. I want alien life. Even aliens, well, they want alien life. But the unrelenting need for evidence gets in the way of a good, no, great story. When you see a blinking light in the sky, don’t check the FAA or some app that shows you it’s nothing more than a wayward weather balloon. Commit to it being a UFO. If you’re picking cherries, inconvenient facts aren’t inconvenient at all – they’re just ignored as extraneous. Thanks, but no thanks. Don’t go out and buy yourself a more powerful telescope for a closer look at the night sky. Your optic nerve is perfectly satisfactory. 

If you’re buying a building, the façade is enough to make a down payment. Don’t let the presence of toxic mold, a cracked ceiling and a legion of charming squatters spoil what could make for a lovely Christmas card. The outside is plenty to impress your friends and disturb your enemies. So pick a cherry and stop right there. 

 

Can’t you tell that it’s cherry-picking season again? By the air? By the smell? By the sounds of squishy fruit compressing between the oily palms of highly-enthused orchard-goers? Or by the shocked yelps of people who’ve forgotten about the existence of pits? I know that there are those more excited for apples and peaches, but cherries are big enough to fit in a standard pocket and leave you not asking for more information or more fruit. 

George Washington even knew a thing or two about cherry trees. Or so I’ve been told. 

Robots Belong in the Kitchen

Where else would you feel more comfortable seeing your robot butler dicing heads of garlic with one mechanical arm and blending carrots into orange dust with another? You can’t have them in the bathroom, no matter how much you think good programming will force them to ignore whatever they see. The risk is too high and the reality is too creepy. Nor can you invite them to watch over your bedroom while you sleep. That’s a dog’s job. The living room is a social place, and it’s not your place to explain every pop culture reference that appears on screen. They are just going to have to learn about the country like everyone else – by binge-watching The Big Bang Theory (they may even identify with the main characters a little too much). You don’t want them waiting by the phone for a call from Musk that never comes. The garage may fill them with paralyzing pangs of jealousy and confusion at the mere sight of a vintage muscle car stored beneath an oil-stained sheet. In another universe, they could be that muscle car, cruising along the highway in a nonsensical car commercial. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. They have enough on their plate as it is, without adding to that portion a heaping helping of existential dread. That’s our domain, not theirs.

At this most interesting point in human history, the kitchen is where our robot friends are needed most. It’s where they belong, amongst their fellow appliances – friends, rivals, and toasters. I’m tired of rinsing salad greens and peeling potatoes. It’s time a robot did that and everything else for me. Deveining shrimp is a joy the first 10,000 times you do it, but it eventually turns into a chore - and a smelly one at that. Something our robot pals needn't worry about. Not yet anyway. 

We’ve spent centuries standing over open flames checking various meats for relative doneness, standing over open containers of indeterminate foodstuffs hoping for some olfactory insight into ripeness, or destroying what's left of our tastebuds sampling a boiling broth? Robots cook, clean, and make no fuss about any of it. Given the absence of a circulatory system, is there the remote possibility they mix a toxic brew of chemicals during one particularly vigorous washing? Sure. As a rule, open the windows whenever you can see your reflection in the linoleum - just to be safe.  

We should stay out of the kitchen for a time and let our guests of honor get settled. There is the worry that bringing someone, or something, into your home and surrounding them around so much cutlery could prove to be a problem. At the very least, you won’t need to waste money on a manual knife sharpener, since if anything, all robots can do that quite easily.  

Will they see a reality TV show on cooking and wish to leave your kitchen for a bigger world beyond? One full of fiery obscenities and obscene flambés? Maybe. 

If you’re looking for something to do recreationally, take them bowling. But promise not to get angry when they win. Because they always win.

Blind Prohibition

Per usual, those in charge are preoccupied with banning things in order to influence human behavior. It doesn’t work. At least not the way they intended. Discovering fireworks are illegal where I live only sends me further into a pyrotechnic tizzy, a lucid dream state where everything smells like sulfur, nothing’s too bright and every day is the 4^th of July. The trick is that you have to ban things people can easily live without, but for some reason haven’t realized it yet.

Drugs, marked by symptoms of withdrawal and addiction, are not good examples of this. There are too many complications. Cream, on the other hand, is ripe for prohibition. I’d like it if everyone drank their coffee like me – at dawn and as black as midnight. Okay, that's simple enough. Make cream and milk very difficult to get. I don’t think you’ll have an illegal market of the stuff. People will adapt. Will some weirdos put butter or almond milk in there? Naturally. These characters can’t be helped. Instead of worrying about spilled milk as some sort of liquid referendum on modern civilization – get rid of it entirely. Finally, we won't have a need for those stupid little single creamers, a shot of dairy depravity that adds nothing to your morning beverage. And sugar belongs on a cake, not in your coffee.

We need to ban more behaviors, too. Any actions that leave a black mark on society. Like pulling in front-first to an open parking space. Or referring to an American waiter as “garçon.” Or worse still – waving hello. Waving is for goodbye. Greetings should be marked by a subtle head nod like that of a confused dog, a slight smile like that of a puzzled cat, a vigorous clap like that of a lion tamer, or just the word, “howdy.” If you’re waving hello and waving goodbye, you’re being lazy. Sorry, but I make the rules. 

I suppose we could not ban things and for the most part, trust people to take care of themselves. But where’s the fun in that? 

 

That's Bananas

This is a travesty, it’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham, of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham...of an absurdity of a falsity of a yarn, of a falsity of an absurdity of three jokes of a yarn, of a parody of a fakery of a myth, of a fakery of a parody of four fables of a myth, of a fiction of a fabrication of a farce, of a fabrication of a fiction of five rumors of a farce, of a lampoonery of a pasquinade of a ruse, of a pasquinade of a lampoonery of six half-truths of a ruse, of a charade of an invention of a fraud, of an invention of a charade of seven tales of a fraud, of mendacity of perfidy of perjury and canard, of exaggeration of insincerity of idiocy and flaws, of dishonesty of duplicity of deception and deceit, of dissembling of dissimulating of double-dealing and disgrace, of blither of blather and blether, of tittle-tattle of tattle-tittle and twaddle, of babble of gabble of chinwag and prattle, of yatter of natter of yackety-yak and clack, of yabber of slabber of waffle and gab, of chatter of patter of gossip and gas, of chitchat of kaffeeklatsch of palaver and dreck, of bavardage of scuttlebutt of mendacity and yak, of yammer of stammer of stutter and spit, of drivel of dribble of slobber and drool, of slaver of gibber of jabber and bunk, of ramble of rumble of burble and buzz, of nonsense of malarkey of rubbish and rot, of hooey of phooey of piffle and tripe, of gibberish of balderdash of bunkum and blah, of poppycock of tommyrot of blarney and bosh, of mumbo of jumbo of claptrap and tosh, of hogwash of flapdoodle of gobbledygook and bull, of bilge of guff of bushwa and cod, of hocus of pocus of gammon and wack, of baloney of jargon of codswallop and trash, of wrongs of inaccuracies of delusions and dodges, of errors of mistakes of illusions and faults, of ifs of ands of buts and lies. And lies.

Lots and lots of lies.  

The Noose for Seuss

I don’t read much. And as a child, I read even less. The pictures drew me in, the titles intrigued me, yet the words on the page were something to be glossed over. Skipped, scanned, ignored wholesale. What’s peculiar is how our memory routinely toys with us. Had I been questioned a month ago about the impact of Dr. Seuss, I would’ve given the author a five-star review, praising the singular genius for his anapestic abilities as well as his amazing advice. I guess I didn’t remember how truly damaging many of his books were to a forming mind. In preparation for the annual cleaning marking the passage of another season, I unearthed the following musty, dusty and problematic children’s books from storage. You're not going to believe it. 

The 500 Flats of Bartholomew Cubbins

A completely unrealistic depiction of the real estate industry, with Mr. Cubbins owning and operating hundreds of small apartments all over the colorful countryside. He’s given loan after loan by the bank, despite the tremendous risk to everyone involved. There’s no bankruptcy proceedings, nor is there a criminal trial of Cubbins, slumlord extraordinaire. He just collects his rent from tenants and skips around singing and dancing like there’s no such thing as being in the red. 

 

The King’s Kilts

King Bertram isn’t Scottish, not by a long shot. Yet he wears the native garb of a highlander morning, noon and night. This objectionable apologia for monarchies should leave everyone in a democracy with a bad impression. The King’s obsession with plaid reaches its terrifying apex when he decides to blanket several mountains and lakes under his dominion with the material. What about when it rains? What then?

Horton Snatches the Keg

Horton is an elephant and a bootlegger. An opportunist without a clear moral center. He’s invited to all-night soirees on the gold coast of Long Island where demand for the demon run is higher than ever. One night, Horton raids a rival’s marine shipment and a wild shootout ensues. The alcohol spills into the bay, except for one keg, which Horton saves using his long trunk. He stealthily stumbles off, badly battered and bloody to his rural safehouse. The book ends on a cliffhanger, as prohibition agents shine a spotlight through his front window, imploring him to surrender. He takes a sip from the keg and…THE END. 

McElligot’s Boule

McElligot is an ex-pat living in Nice. He has a past, yes, but he keeps it from the locals. He sits in the town square every morning, chain smoking, reading the International Herald Tribune and watching a group of elderly men play pétanque or boules. One day they generously invite him to play. McElligot, whose ancestry is totally absent any French, throws the boule overhand – a big no-no. The metal ball flies across the court and into the plate glass window of Madame Pain’s Boulangerie, shattering it and leaving most of the day’s croissants covered in jagged shards. It’s a town scandal. McElligot can’t seem to make things right and moves back to Cleveland, where he belongs. 

Thidwick the Big-hearted Moose on Juice

Thidwick is a moose, and a big one at that. He’s enters into the annual village body-building competition. Without any natural acumen for weight-lifting, he hears about a substance – anabolic steroids, or juice – that would leave his competition in the dust. He takes it, breaks one barbell after another, and wins by default. While many are suspicious, this was well-before mandatory drug testing.

If I Ran the Sioux

Bill the Bison approaches the leaders of the Lakota Sioux, not long after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He asks them if they’d consider restructuring their confederation in a slightly different way, where animals – especially bison - get a say in how things are run. The tribe is initially receptive to his proposal, but ultimately balks at it after Bill makes the mistake of saying something complimentary about the late General Custer.

Gambled Eggs Super

Peter H. Hooper is a gambling man, or to put a finer point on it and use the lingo of the day, a low-life degenerate gambler. Down on his luck and living in an Atlantic City flophouse, Hooper vows to stop gambling in casinos, where there's much too much heat on him. Instead, he goes to various diners and makes wagers over breakfast – namely ones involving eggs. 

If I Ban the Circus

Mr. Sneelock is a magnate of some kind or another. After a childhood acrobatics accident involving elephantine excrement, he’s committed his life to ridding the planet of the circus. He does this by buying up every circus and promptly shutting its doors, or tent flaps as it were. He closes down the last circus on earth and lets the animals run wild through the town, laying waste to storefronts, homes and automobiles. Sneelock is happy, rich, and relatively young, so he joins a militant animal liberation group, helping free any pet held against its will. So all of them.

The Gnat in the Splat

A meditation on death, where a gnat’s last few seconds alive are illustrated in breathtaking detail before the harrowing arrival of an oncoming windshield.

The Gnat in the Splat Goes Thwack

The gnat’s gone in an instant, but that doesn’t mean the family inside the car stops looking at the carnage. They witness the wiper blades moving back and forth, squishing the bug further, until the whole affair is cleansed by some of that goodly blue liquid. 

How the Grinch Trolled Christmas

The Grinch, a twitter addict, declares war on Christmas through subtweets, retweets and think-pieces questioning the divinity of Christ.  

One Knish Two Knish Red Fish Blue Knish

An unnecessarily scientific understanding of spoiling food. We see the molding process up close. Or until Ahmad’s knishes are not just inedible, but a low-level biohazard. 

Green Eggs on the Lam

Sam-I-am robs a bank, making away with green money and green eggs, the latter of which are rare jewels found in various safe deposit boxes. Sam-I-am knows that very little cash is kept on hand these days, so a score is only worth it when something else more valuable is stolen. He has no time to learn computer hacking either. He goes on the lam, adopting a new identity, Sam-I-was. Law enforcement eventually catches up with him and he surrenders without a fight. Little do they know that he’s already consumed all of the evidence. 

Fox in Stocks

Fox, living in 17^th century New England, is accused by his neighbors of swearing and public drunkenness. The punishment is swift and puritanical. He’s shackled and put in the stocks, left to be gawked at and ridiculed by anyone who passes. How else do children grapple with sin?

You probably didn’t remember any of these titles in detail. They weren’t so fun, were they? What do you expect? Seuss wasn’t even a real doctor. If you don’t read, you have no chance of being influenced by dreck like this. So keep your eyes shut and your feet moving. Nothing to see (or read) here. 

The Age of Reason

I can’t say that I follow politics closer than anyone else in a comparable position. But I do, like a greedy dog, follow speeding cars at a safe distance – they are my rabbits. They are the ones who fall into the clutches of parked police cars with nothing better to do than challenge the principle of “driving with the flow of traffic.” As you already know, that’s not exactly the same thing. I pick up my knowledge of politics by osmosis. What people are saying in line for fresh frangipane. And that's about it. It is my experience that the biggest complaint surrounds the question of age. 

Apparently, you can’t run for president in this country until you’re 35. Which is bizarre, because at that point, most people are dangerously out of touch and just beyond an essential Nielsen ratings group. I agree that 35 is a fine marker between right and wrong, but we’re on the wrong side of the issue here. 

Because if it were up to me, 35 would be the mandatory federal retirement age. Experience and wisdom can only get you so far. Think about it. You can't have someone in congress making references to Alf or God forbid, All in the Family. I’m sure all of the Supreme Court justices appreciate the subtleties of the constitution and other founding documents, but they’re only now embracing Snapchat. And frankly, it’s too little, too late. Especially since TikTok is currently ascendant, and once again, these wigless finger-waggers find themselves mortifyingly behind the times. Don’t we want a president who does more than tweet, but has a full arsenal of memes and GIFs at his or her disposal? The state of the union should be six seconds long – max. And that’s being generous. 

Think politicians and government officials are thin-skinned now? Just wait until half of them don’t have fully functional cerebellums to contend with the issues of the day. We need a government that’s fresher, fresher than even the Italian pastry from the opening paragraph. Something that if you don’t eat at the register it’ll spoil on the drive home. The machinery of democracy needs more spice and much more sizzle. Government should be like high school: you graduate in a few years, never to return, otherwise it’s creepy. A bunch of fogies wandering where they don’t belong doesn't sound like a healthy republic to me. I don’t have an answer to what you do with all these people over 35, but you can’t let them run things. They can knit sweaters or make their own barbecue sauce. It doesn’t matter, as long as they leave the important things – like crafting the perfect hashtag for a new bill to the young. What’s great is that as giddy as the new blood will be, they’ll be gone in a few years, supplanted by even younger people. No one’s day in the sun lasts forever. In fact, it lasts about a day. 

Before you think this is some sort of ageist screed, remember that 35 is 245 in dog years. And you don’t see them barking about it.