Modernity Leave

Everyone needs a break. Even as the dog days wind down in favor of something crisper. There’s no shortage of reasons for doing so. Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed – the one that slopes into the floorboards due to an eroding mattress weather-beaten over time and unnecessary rollovers. Or you woke up with a tickle in your throat that requires a steady medley of hot tea and cold silence. Perhaps you drifted off to sleep wondering if the sun would even come up – a dilemma many a medieval farmer dealt with on a daily basis. What then does a person do a cloudy day? When you discover that the sun doesn’t go “up” or “down” at all. It merely hangs there like an enticing pinata. And much like this premier party favor, we’re the ones revolving around it – not the other way around. 

For some, a day off here or there is enough to assuage their innermost crises and moral quandaries. But for others, it’s just a good start. What they want is a sabbatical, a break, a leave. Time apart to contemplate their place in the universe (all while being handsomely paid with benefits to boot). 

Modernity is what sends them into the abyss. Modernity Leave aims to solve that problem. I know, modernity is all relative, all about perspective. I guess. But what did people in the 1600s really have to worry about? It certainly wasn’t the prospect of breaking in a new ergonomic desk chair. Most people didn’t have desks. Modernity Leave gives us the time needed to consider where it all went wrong. Somewhere between the birth of radio and the birth of Snapchat, things went awry. 

Modernity should be novel, weird, and seemingly impractical. Like a late night automat packed with tubed meats or a robot butler waiting to remove your loafers the second you set foot on the doormat.

Employers that permit Modernity Leave gain fresh employees upon their return. These are people who arch their back not like the Pont du Gard but like Saarinen’s greatest monument. They deserve time to think, about themselves and why sunken living rooms haven’t come back. If this doesn’t work, there’s always eternity leave.

Sorry, But That Won’t Fly Today

There are the obvious examples, the ones that first come to mind during any conversation on the subject of what would and wouldn’t fly today. The ostriches, the penguins, the emus. Flightless birds who don’t believe wings are necessarily meant to flap beneath a cool breeze and well above the clouds. To them, these natural wonders of ours, flight is overrated. It’s dangerous. In the old days, the only thing birds had to contend with up there were other birds. Friends, or at least, friends of friends. On the rare occasion that a soused Frenchman with a penchant for buoyancy entered the fray, they might be forced to watch out for a wicker basket attached to a hot air balloon. Hardly the Saturn 5. 

But that wasn’t until the tail end of the 18^th century. Up until that point they’d had quite the run of things. Sure, there were lanterns and other  flotsam, but mostly it was free of nonsense. No planes, helicopters, or beachcombing buffoons wearing baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts operating a small drone while their family frolics in the surf.

I’m sure there are people, rich people, perhaps good friends of mine, who are right now working on a way to get the flightless into orbit. Don’t they get it? This is a choice. The flightless birds, the kiwis, the cassowaries, the rheas – they are grounded on purpose. They’ve seen the flights in and out of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and that's enough to send them into the sand dunes. What? You didn’t think birds understood radar? That was only bats, right? Wrong. The feathered few understood radar when you were still going out with birdfeeders. 

Plus, do you honestly believe that a penguin couldn’t fly under the right circumstances? Of course, they could. They just don’t want to. It’s too crowded up there, especially now and especially in the future. They watch their friends, the seagulls, the pigeons, the geese, maligned by the public for interfering with landings and takeoffs and have made the determination that it’s not worth it. No one wants to be on Sully's bedside - not again. Things are much better on terra firma. It’s a choice, like any other. All I ask is that you respect their choice and don’t place chickadees on a higher plane than the kiwi. Who needs the headache? Not with Musk and Bezos crowding the clouds. Many have taken up swimming to fill the emotional and physical void. Can you blame them?

They are far from the only thing that doesn’t fly today either. Staplers, minivans, Pan Am, to name just three. Before you get all high and mighty pontificating about how this or that doesn’t fly today, think of our flightless friends. Because while they don’t fly anymore, they used to. And who knows, maybe they will again one day when the skies are clearer and the future a bit sunnier. Because it wouldn't be a normal flight without a significant delay. 

Finding a Life Couch

Has life got you down? Good, then you’re closer to solving the problem than you even know. Is life exhausting but you still can’t seem to sleep through the night? Great, then you’re almost there. Trust me, people, trust me. 

What you don’t need, what you can’t possibly afford is a full-time, live-in life coach. Where would you even put such a person? In the broom closet with your extra brooms? The trusty ones you were deeded by your Shaker Great Aunt who left this world without so much as a lacquered rocking chair to her good name. The basement isn’t a safe place either. I know that people are always deriding others for living in basements, but yours is heavy on the radon and light on everything else – including canned beans and jarred nut butter. 

How many of you have hired a life coach thinking it would solve your many problems? I see lots of hands. Okay, okay, put ‘em down.

 

What you need is a life couch, a piece of certified therapeutic furniture that doesn’t judge (lest it be judged). You don’t sleep on such a couch, you pass out after a day of sun-staring or what’s called a heliotropic cure-all. It worked for Galileo, so who are you to argue with those results? I know all about his house arrest, but here’s the thing, we remember GG today, his legacy is secure. There’s not much time spent assessing and reassessing your day. What transpired is done and only thing you are left to troubleshoot is whether or not to sleep on the couch as is or unroll the full-sized mattress stored beneath.

But wait, there’s more.

For a limited time only, we’ll throw in a “friend table” to go with your specially designed life couch. Aren’t you sick of good buddies flaking on you claiming they have better plans? Well, this piece of upholstery is an upright member of the living room. It stays there until you say it’s time to hit the donation bucket. 

Hold on. What’s that? I’m listening to my earpiece. Dave, you can’t talk while I’m talking, how many times have we been through this? What’s that? Oh, great. You’re going to love this, people. That’s right, you guessed it, there’s even more. For the next fifteen minutes, we’re offering an exclusive deal. Order a life couch plus the friend table and we’ll add a brand new “storage advice.” This little piece of hardware may look small, but boy does it contain some real gemstones. Inside is everything you ever wanted to know. Unsure what to tell your teenager about dropping out of high school to join a militant group of traveling carnies? Or maybe you can’t fry an egg to perfection. The storage advice won’t give you options, it will give you decisions – the right one or your money back. 

What do you think folks? They’re flying off the shelves, so you better duck. Life couches sure are heavy. Remember, living rooms are for living. All our lines are open. Talk soon.  

Stress Conferences

There’s some quiet murmuring, mostly chitchat about flight delays and the efficacy of lockdowns. There’s the universal sound of fingers scrolling along smartphones, swiping and swiping without a care in sight. No big bright flashbulbs like in the old days though. The Athlete in question here is the world’s premier bocce player, Fabrizio Scusa. Unlike most bocce players, Scusa is not in his 70s, sipping on dessert wine and smoking unfiltered cigarettes in between shots. He’s much younger than that. He prefers hard seltzer and a fresh vape pod. The news today surrounds his decision to pull out of the latest match, taking away his balls and going home. Journalists are chomping for his carcass, smelling the chum on the court. Bocce didn’t used to have press conferences. Then again, it didn’t used to have fans either.  

“What happened out there? You just got up after a shot while you were still leading?”

“I felt it was time. I’d rather risk humiliation here than humiliation out there.”

“But couldn’t your opponent interpret your decision as a personal slight? As if you’re unwilling to let him beat you fair and square?”

“He can’t beat me fair and square. I was hungry, I was thirsty. I was tired.”

“What about the fans who paid good money to see you perform?”

“I get stressed like regular people, even though I’m not a regular person. Being a bocce boy comes with a lot of responsibility. Bludgeoning is always on the tip of my finger. I don’t want to maim my competitor by accident. 

“What about on purpose?”

“Don’t get cute with me, Rodolfo.” 

“Some people might get annoyed that you’re quitting this match but heading straight to a big photoshoot in Maui.”

“I don’t enjoy photoshoots. It’s just something I have to do. It’s not my fault people enjoying seeing me shirtless and sweaty.”

“When will you play again?”

“It’s hard to say. After the shoot, I’m going to take a few mental wealth days and decide, along with my team, what’s next for my playing career.”

“Mental wealth days? Could you describe what one of those is like?”

“They’re a lot like mental health days, only with a lot more money. When I’m feeling anxious or uneasy in my own skin, I call up my financial guy Alvaro. He lives on Grand Cayman and he reassures me that I have nothing to worry about. He goes over my endorsements and explains exactly how many private jets I’d need to purchase for him to be concerned. It’s way more than you think. Counting sheep helps some people relax. Me? I count money. I recommend it to everyone. It really works. I'm almost good enough to play bocce again. Almost.” 

Without A Net

In my alternate career as an excellent life coach by day and dispenser of wisdom pearls like a gifted oyster shucker standing in broken shells and feeling around for the perfect one by sea, I’m often asked about backup plans. As in, is it important to have one or two in case things don’t work out accordingly? The super successful, the minted financiers, the moneyed mavens, and the well-fed entrepreneurs with their ivory white collars and tax write-offs, like to tell you they preferred entering the business world without so much as a single fallback. They skipped the net, feeling it would only make them feel too comfortable and too safe to stunt their brimming ambition. 

Perhaps, perhaps. If your ambition and drive is so delicate the presence of a net derails it, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place. Are you a better cyclist sans helmet, too? 

Because a strategically placed net might just save your life. Even the spandex-wearing circus freaks, holding poles and walking on tiptoes rarely if ever traipse across without a safety net. They know that one wrong move and it’s into the elephant dung they go – or worse. The clowns and dancing bears below are glad to have the net, since they depend on it as well. 

We’re not all acrobats. We don’t all understand acrobatics. Even professional contortionists and pretzel lovers put a premium on safety during live performances. Yet we’re made to believe that the president of a startup is immune from contingency plans. Don’t believe it. 

Ever try fishing without a net? I’m not talking about the solo fisherman, resting his eyes on a rowboat, hoping for a bite or two before the mosquitos turn the tables on him. No, this is in regards to the career fisherman, the nautical fella whose living depends on each catch. Imagine if instead of a net they had to use a spear or, God forbid, their clammy hands. Fish are slippery little fiends and pretty good swimmers. You think Phelps knows his way around water? He’s nothing compared to those who live in it full-time. At the end of the day, Olympic swimmers are still land mammals moonlighting in liquid for prestige and profit. 

Maybe you’re trawling and trolling, picking up shells, tossing back the broken ones, the smelly ones, the ones that don’t sit right. Imagine looking for bivalves with galoshes but no net. It can’t be done. 

Not having a fallback is a nice thought. But where does it get you in the end? Picking yourself off the pavement is easier the lower you are to the ground. And getting crushed is supposed to happen at the end of your career, not the beginning. 

Defacing Facts

With so many historic monuments in need of a good old-fashioned scrub down, many of us are out looking for sponges wherever they rest. No sink is safe. I’m no vandal, but I often wondered why defacing has so little to do with the face of the statues in question. Couldn’t we get more creative than spray painting obscenities across the base? You’d like to think so.

There are lots of ways to do this and pretty much all of them are hilariously funny. One dilemma that faces the defacer is what to do with the bearded figures of yore. What do I mean by this? For one thing, an easy way to destroy the credibility of someone is to scribble an absurd beard or grotesque mustache on them. This primal urge is the same reason sharpies are banned from waiting rooms. Otherwise, the doctor’s stack of Golf Digest quickly transforms into Pirates Quarterly, with dark eyepatches, bandanas and a stick-figure parrot adorning the shoulder of a seasoned putter. You think you have the yips now? Try sinking a birdie putt with a talking birdie shouting down your caddy, more concerned about the worms on the green than its contours. 

But when staring at a biblical beard, there's very little room for additional follicles. Something else is demanded. Like lopping off their head or lengthening the mane of a ceremonial steed. 

That aside, defacing monuments is serious business. But why just the face? Dehandsing seems like fun. Dewinging is a happy hour special at your nearest sports bar. Denosing is a traditional practice usually left to gravity, destroying the nasal supremacy of many a museum-owned artifact. There are other de-[insert your favorite extremity] I could name but won’t. Take a trip to the Met if you don’t believe me. Donations are only suggested. 

A Moment of Avuncularity

Children are little people but they’re not exactly little people either. They are something else. And they run the world by proxy. Adults living under their spell have no hope to do anything else besides comply. So they wait on them hand and foot, suffering under their yoke, throwing grand parties with instructional videos, hired magicians, and extra cake. The kids are thankful, for the most part. Yet they are willing to risk everything just for a nap. They’ll get up in the middle of an event thrown solely for them and simply leave. Very few adults with two feet firmly planted in reality ever exhibit such a shameless power move amid pastries and professional rabbit wranglers.

Kids could still use some advice from time to time. Not mindless lessons in etiquette either. That’s for the parents. For the rest of us, it’s best to avunculate when we can. Uncles are not employed to inform children which fork is a salad fork and how to properly fold a napkin like a limping swan. They are there to have a catch or tell a joke, recommend a good book or enlist a young person’s help in the daunting job of husking corn.   

America has always had a desire to be the world’s foremost uncle, but an uncle should be fun, not strict. An uncle is not a disciplinarian or a surrogate parent. An uncle is not a cop or a taskmaster. An uncle is there to light a roman candle or wash a ’67 Corvette, recall a funny story or wear a funny hat. An uncle should toggle between cool and crazy, a fine line few can walk. 

Everyone looks forward to the arrival of a fun uncle to a party. They are more entertaining than a tray of baked goods or a table of balloon animals. They lead by example, not by force. You might adopt their strut or style, but that’s up to you.  

Smart uncles don’t try to change fully formed adults. They do what they can, when they can. They leave an impression, but leave the party when it’s over. They aren’t living on your pull-out in the basement, waiting at breakfast to impart pre-dawn guidance competing with the coffee aroma and bacon smell. They’ll be back when they’re back. 

Truthtellers and soothsayers alike abound in their deference to the potent power of sage advice delivered by someone other than a parent. As if the sheer act of non-parental direction is worth it for that mere fact alone. It isn’t.

The world could still use more uncles though.. Less Uncle Sam, more Uncle Leo.

The Lobster Shaq

“Slam dunk dining.”

“Don’t pass up an open shot at this experience.”

“End crustacean frustration once and for all.”

You’re an adult. You have a family. You have a good job and a nice house. You pay your taxes and any crime you committed during your impetuous youth was expunged the day you turned eighteen. Yet here you are, wearing a bib, slobbering like an infant, covered in specks of food, with butter stains running from your mouth to your navel. There must be a better way, right? 

Now that you’re thinking about it, you don’t even know how to use a nutcracker. And the ones lining your parents’ Steinway Grand were mercifully never subjected to actual nuts. This is a problem elsewhere – but not here. 

At the world’s first, and pending future litigation, only Lobster Shaq, our technique is both simple and reliable. Here at The Lobster Shaq, we have the only of employing Shaquille O’Neal, NBA Hall-of-Famer and all-around great guy. Instead of having diners futz with their lobster dinners, breaking little bits of shell in a haphazard manner, damaging countless corneas and prides, the honor and privilege falls solely on Mr. O’Neal. With hands once used for rebounding and dunking, he is able to dismantle a dozen lobsters in a matter of seconds. Afterwards, they are primed and ready to consume. If you're lucky, he might even start rapping. 

At the Lobster Shaq, we take hygiene very seriously, so while the food is good enough to be classified as finger-licking – nothing of the sort occurs on the premises. We can't speak for what happens in the parking lot though. Shaq hops from table to table, grabbing tails and claws, ensuring your dining experience skips all impediments. 

On behalf of Shaquille O’Neal and everyone on staff, we hope you stop on by. 

 

Shaquille O’Neal may not be on site the day you dine. He may or may not be in Maine at the time of your arrival. He may or may not have approved this message. He could be, we can’t say for sure, a relatively large man from nearby Portland who we convinced for a sizable sum of money to impersonate the b-ball legend. However, all reservations require a non-refundable deposit plus a commitment to purchase some related memorabilia. The Shaq signed miniature harpoon is a crowd favorite, as is the oyster shaped basketball. The Lobster Shaq is not liable for any injuries that occur during the lobster cracking process.

The Twilight Zane

It is the middle ground between fame and obscurity, between sandwiches and salads, and it lies between the audition tape and the casting call. It encompasses a man’s resume – the one on paper and the embellished one touted by a smart agent. It is an area, which we like to call, The Twilight Zane…

A small, nuclear family – son, daughter, father, mother – gather ‘round their kitchen table for a little morning chitchat. The coffee is lukewarm, the cereal is soggy, and the bacon is starting to lose its char.  

“I noticed that Titanic was on TV last night,” said the mother.

“It really holds up,” said the daughter.

“I still don’t understand how an iceberg can cause that much damage. Couldn’t they have just melted the thing? Something’s definitely fishy. I highly doubt we’re getting the real story, even after all these years,” said the son.

“What’s the point? We know the boat’s going down,” said the father.

But then something happened. Something almost imperceptible, though still unmistakable. 

“Although, I always liked that actor who played Winslet’s initial love interest. What was his name?," said the father.

The family stared at their patriarch, dumbfounded, stunned, confused, and appalled. 

“Who? Winslet and Leo are together from the first foghorn,” said the daughter.

“They are? Then where’s the conflict.”

The father knew something was up. He looked at each person sitting around the table in the eye, trying to read them, figure out if they were pulling one over on him. But this was not a family that enjoyed practical jokes. Or was it?

“The conflict, Daddy, is that there’s a massive iceberg that was sent by God or the Devil to disrupt their love affair,” said the daughter. 

“And disrupt it, it did,” said the mother. 

“Strange, isn’t it? We love ice. You’re in some swanky cocktail bar and the ice cubes are just so, perfectly balanced to complement your chosen beverage. In a way, we’re imbibing a murder weapon. How is that possible let alone legal?,” said the son. 

The son was always going off on tangents. Though his assertion was certainly correct. Gunpowder isn’t an aperitif and mustard gas isn’t sprayed on an unreasonably dry grilled cheese.  

“He wore a bow tie, he’s famously bald, I think he was from Chicago. Billy Zane, that’s it. Come on, guys, we love him,” said the father. 

Nothing. Not a blink. Not a grin. No reaction.

“Are you telling me you’ve never heard of Billy Zane? He was in Zoolander and The Phantom, among other films.”

The daughter gets up and feels her father’s forehead.

“He is a little warm.”

“I feel fine. You people are the ones who’ve lost it.” 

“We’ve been through this before. There’s no such person as “Billy Zane.” To begin with, that’s a ridiculous name.” 

“But I’ve seen him. Let me call a few friends. They’ll support me on this. I just know it.”

“It’s over, Dave. These nice men are here to take you away to get some help.” 

Three large men in white shirts and slacks approach. There’s no fighting them. It’s over.

“Bye dad, get better soon,” said the son.

“You’ve gotta believe me. There is a Billy Zane,” he shouted, as the three men dragged him off into a panel van parked out front. 

In a home for the mildly confused, the father sits peering out the window. He’s holding a book on the history of the RMS Titanic, leafing through every page in a desperate search for answers. On one page towards the back, there’s a black and white photo. It must’ve been taken prior to the sinking, when mirth was still onboard the ship. There, towards the center, plain as day, sat a man bearing the uncanny resemblance to one William George Zane, Jr. Only it was in 1912. It looked like such a good time, in those hours before disaster. They were having fun, getting to know each other. 

“This is Billy Zane. I found him, I found him,” screamed the father. 

Who? Billy Zane, that’s who. He was the icebreaker. He’s always been the icebreaker. The moment we forget about Billy Zane, we forget about our own humanity, all who’ve come before us and all those who are destined to follow us. But here, it’s different. In a little place, we call The Twilight Zane…

General Hostile

Getting things wrong on a consistent basis while suffering very few consequences for it is the hallmark of a truly great job. A bulletproof tenure most of us can only dream of ever obtaining. Certain occupations end up drowning in data sets and peer reviews. They are constantly grading employees, ascertaining their place among the easily quantifiable. But who wants a job where prosperity and success are fundamentally tied to outcomes? We’re all just spit-balling here. It’s creepy to come back months or years later to see your careless, thoughtless words thrown back at you. The time has since passed to let it go.

Football draft prognosticators are given wonderful leeway to do their best, making selections, guessing which players will go to the hall of fame and which ones will end up cleaning the jacuzzi jets in a Motel 6. No one is going to remember that in 1998 you predicted on live television that pretty soon the league was going to add a second, smaller pigskin for fourth down conversions. Or that it was only a matter of time before the end zone occupied all four sides of a square field instead of the current double goal rectangle. You were going for something, pushing the limit, and so what if you came up short? It happens to plenty of teams marching down the field aiming to score. 

Weathermen, those rain-soaked artistes, pointing their wands at pressure systems and making outlandish predictions for holiday weekends. They are, in many ways, fragile predictors of an unpredictable world. But they try, with their emphasis on boots and hats, umbrellas and ponchos, to make life dryer despite a moister future. Their job security is like few others. They are given the latitude to go for it – calling for hurricanes when there’s barely a droplet in the sky. But natural disasters always keep you tuning in, for it’s a far better story when trees go horizontal as the whipping wind wins an invisible arm-wrestling match between the two parties.

Then there are the members of the Eisenhower-labeled military industrial complex. Gilded warriors and greasy television personalities, constantly invoking the past in ways that serve a grander purpose. You’d think that ancient quagmires would be left off their resumes, the way you remove a job based on poor performance or a personality conflict with a colleague. Not them. They burnish their image on ideas still germinating during Vietnam. It is, as always, a sight to behold. There are protests and routine anger directed their way, but none of it disrupts their membership in the cocktail elite sipping and clinking around the stupidly alphabetic streets of our nation’s humid capital. 

The rest of us regular folks are afraid to fail. Not these heroes of errors though. They exist in a different reality, abiding by separate governing laws, where to be wrong is closer to being right than actually being right. 

If Memory Swerves

When taking a trip down memory lane, it’s best to brace yourself for rude awakening after rude awakening. What you think you remember is usually a little different from what really transpired way back when. You have this image in your head of a picturesque town, perfectly quaint in its quaintness, harkening back to a time when paper boys ran amok, windmills spun at a gentle clip, and the only pickets involved white fencing. 

But then you pull into town and see a swinging, unblinking streetlight between an intersection that once embodied the very definition of control. To see it now is to weep. For it languishes as a place of chaos. Anarchy has come to small town America. You see spaces, shadows of buildings that formerly loomed over the region, but are no more, ground into dust. 

Then you recall a memory of your father bringing home freshly baked madeleines from the boulangerie in the center of the village. Raoul was the baker, a friend of the family's. He'd slip in a few extras for the kiddies, always the most generous soul. Even after all these years, you can still taste the sponge as it crumbles onto your plate and makes it way to your gullet. Everything rushes back like a stream bubbling through the township. 

Yet you pull into your hometown confused and depressed. There’s no boulangerie. You didn’t grow up in France. Raoul is nowhere to be found. The bubbling stream is mostly dry, with fish carcasses and garbage, a toxic spill sealing its fate. There were no madeleines, that much you know now. You got cookies, occasionally on special occasions. Far from the norm, you daily routine involved crumbs and scraps, heavily processed snacks without so much as an accent aigu to provide a little style.  

You were a bit off. It happens to the worst of us. Next time, check your photo album or court transcript. Those have a way of giving reality a stronger foundation. Either that or continue misremembering things past. Your call. 

Sleep It Off

When I’m out and about peppering random people with questions, many of the recipients throw their hands up in silent protest. Either that or it’s a sign language phrase I’ve yet to learn. I ask them seemingly simple things like, “why are you woke?” to which they correct the record by saying, “I’m not woke, I’m super-woke.” When I ask how woke is super-woke on a scale of 1 to woke they clam up, barely mustering up enough breath to mutter, “I’m so tired.” 

Interesting development, if not exactly an unexpected one. To be woke and tired goes together like balls and gloves. How are we this shocked when a great many members of the population are walking zombies, incapable of shutting their minds off for shuteye? Insomnia shouldn’t be passively lauded, it should be handily defeated.

My advice is wholly apolitical and without judgment of any kind. Ever think of trying to get some rest? Sleeping does wonders for the body and the soul. Whenever people mention how tired they are, they act as if it’s some mysterious ailment modern science is far from solving. But the thing about fatigue is that it’s pretty much wiped out by sleeping. Whether finding a comfy futon or a firm patch of flooring, humans are quite adept at sleeping when it’s necessary. There isn’t much that can’t be alleviated by a quick REM cycle. 

Everyone has their own personal method of falling asleep. Some bang their heads slowly, while others require the assistance of a local shaman. It’s not for me to say. By counting sheep is far easier than being one. 

Plus, sleep deprivation is very unhealthy. Which could also explain the tenor of our current discourse. People get agitated when they’re tired, say things they don’t mean, mean things they don’t say. So turn out the lights, catch a few zees and all will be forgiven in the morning. You’ll wake up to find a refreshed and mildly more compassionate society. 

Good night and you might just wake up to a better tomorrow. 

Hot Planet Summer

The planet is hot. Like really hot. A sizzling scorcher of a celestial body. So when did this become such a bad thing? How did we let pencil pushers in lab coats tell us how to plan for a nonstop worldwide shindig? I for one have always thought hotness was as fine a goal as any. A worthwhile target, as it were. Personally, achieving the perfect level of hotness has always dictated how I dress, speak and carry myself in public. 

People are so hung up on “rising temperatures” that they are missing the big picture. The one the boys from Apollo 17 captured in living color. This isn't about sandals and tank tops, it's about something else. Say what you will about other planets, namely the unrequited love of one particular enterprising Wildman, but this green and blue marble of ours is extremely good looking - breathtakingly attractive. The oceans, the forests, the earth has it all. Volcanoes, too. What’s hotter than that? 

The planet is, aside from strip malls, unapologetically naked. And even those architectural monstrosities still contain the operative word, “strip.” It seems like we’re always saying how hot the planet is, how hot it’s getting and yet no one is complimenting the planet. It boils down to data and graphs, pie charts and footnotes. Hardly sexy material even to the most sensual geologist out there. 

Whenever we compliment the planet it’s always specific, a national park or a nice vista nearby. But these are accessories, mere earrings when compared to the earth's raw beauty. Instead, we should be warming up to the whole globe as a living thing. 

There's a case to be made for the moon's relative attractiveness, judging solely by its asteroid bombardment. But that magnetism was then, this is now. Plus, our best impacts had real impact. Dinosaurs anyone? 

I’m not here to deny other realities, only to present another, far greater one. But I get it. I really do. There are people who sit at home rubbing their telescopes and snooping the moons of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn, wishing they were in a different orbit. But have these people ever been to Idaho?  

Hot planets are few and far between. Sticking to our solar system and that fact becomes readily apparent. The rest of the bodies in the stars are a veritable freak show, an ugly parade of lifeless, miserable rocks. Not like our earth.

Yet cruel arbiters of taste contend that might not always be the case. That’s certainly possible. Everything wrinkles over time. But the earth has dealt with a lot in 4 billion years. Although, there’s dignity in age and aging. I wouldn’t count out the earth just yet. 

Throwing Money At Your Problems

There are hardly any problems on earth that aren’t, at least in part, mitigated by throwing money at them. As you might have guessed, this is not a metaphor. For generations, people have interpreted this expression as anything but literally – much to their own obvious peril. 

This was easier in bygone days, when pirates plundered to wade waist-deep in mountains of doubloons. Coins, as you might imagine, can be thrown in a variety of appealing, aerodynamic ways. First, there’s the long toss – picture a baseball player having a catch to warm up before the game. Then there’s the quick flick – picture the two-finger swatting of a pesky insect on a hot and humid day. Then there’s the classic flip – picture two degenerate gamblers slavering of the endless possibilities while the coin remains tantalizingly and fleetingly in-flight.  

Throwing a bill or two takes practice and perseverance. But as any veteran cash thrower knows, wads are where it’s at. These zip through the air unseen yet admired. But the days of cash are waning. The hour of cashless approaches, where do we go from here? 

Who’s even heard of throwing cryptocurrency? What would that entail? I’m no expert, but there’s just no way it is easier than pelting someone with a silver dollar or Buffalo nickel. Throwing blockchain at problems might work, if it involved big blocks and heavy chains - the ones cyclists use to secure their rides in bad neighborhoods. However, I’m no economist. But as far as I can tell, it’s far more abstract than that. Perhaps this is the way in for the average person. Give them something to throw, before you give something to grow. At least with credit cards, the weight allows you to send them through the air like a ninja star. Good luck doing the same with this modern junk. 

The big reason barter endured for as long as it did in the marketplace of things is the relative ease of throwing an orange, banana, or a thousand other hot (or cold) commodities. No one questioned you for hurling a coconut during a financial dispute. What would you do today on, God forbid, the Dark Web? Enlist lawyers to sort it out? I hope not.

I’d recommend throwing money at your problems. But who knows how long I’ll be able to say that. To be safe, feel free to throw your hard drive, too.

Ciao Fella

You’re at a party and the hour is getting late. The shrimp cocktails are curling from the heat lamps, forming rubberized appetizers devoid of taste, but not smell. The keg is kicked and most of the last stragglers have exited. You want to leave badly, but you can’t just slink out without saying goodbye first. Can you? Some do, some have. It’s a notoriously Hibernian departure, but by no means exclusive to those hailing from the unsunny Emerald Isle.

For some, leaving any event is a production unto itself. One involving handshakes, hugs, kisses, errant pinches, and hollow plans to “meet up sometime down the road to hash out a business plan.” That isn’t going to happen. The guy there with the friend who works at the big Hollywood studio was only being nice. You were blocking his way to the bathroom, creating an impossible-to-avoid conversation. He’s not going to read your experimental screenplay about Spiderman’s hasty retirement from crimefighting to become a professional seamster in the Garment district. You figure that eight arms are perfect for sewing, right? You’re not wrong, of course, but when have you ever seen Spiderman with more than two arms? You haven’t. 

There are times at even the classiest of fetes where the hosts politely ask you to leave, not the other way around. It’s for the best. Maybe you touched on a subject that was off limits. Or maybe you touched something that was off limits, like the pair of Giacomettis flanking their gorgeous patio. You’re not welcome anymore. It’s not that your generous gift to the charity of their choosing wasn’t appreciated, it’s just that the other guests are getting uncomfortable. Especially when you keep calling Giacometti “your favorite paisan” when everyone knows the sculptor was proudly Swiss. 

We should all get used to leaving, since it’s a fundamental part of living. You can’t expect a cot and a bedtime story at every red sauce joint from the Bronx to Staten. They have to close up eventually, to scrub the marinara out of the Snow White tablecloths or patch up any bullet holes leftover in the walls from tip disputes. 

Ideally, you flawlessly avoid the painful and pointless double goodbye, usually occurring in the foyer and then again in front of your car. You have nothing left to say, so you nod awkwardly and smile subtly. Because, as Smokey Robinson once asked, “what’s so good about goodbye?”

Disgrunt Work

I stopped reading the news a few months ago. Or was it years ago? Since turning off the ticker and ignoring any flashing red lights, I’ve lost track of time. In doing so, I’ve come to appreciate the inner-workings of the inner working world, noticing precisely what makes people tick. Unlike intricately designed Swiss clocks, what makes people tick are not the finely tuned mechanisms in place to keep accurate time. But rather, something far different and much less prone to rust.

People gravitate towards less consistent measurements, ones that aren’t as easily repaired with cruise and tiny instruments airmailed from your friend in Bern. Anger, rage, and resentment are powerful fuels. Much more readily available than love, joy, and enthusiasm. With everyone still at home, it’s harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. Or as I like to say, the gruntled from the disgruntled. 

In an office, you can always spy a disgruntled employee, practically living in the copy room, hunched over, searching for menial tasks to do. Anything that will keep them away from their desk and on a semi-permanent road trip, wandering the halls, away from supervisors and HR. The disgruntled are the mutterers, the sighers, the people who always have a pile of oft-squeezed stress balls nearing the point of explosion. 

Turning someone disgruntled into a member of the gruntled class is no easy mission. Gruntled people, while rarer, stand out even more. They are the ones who sing show tunes into the staplers, willingly share personal details, and choose to socialize with colleagues after work, or even after they’ve left the company for good. The trouble with the gruntled, is that in our heavily medicated society, many of the telltales are used to diagnose underlying mental illnesses. Who even uses a stapler these days, let along belts out a few bars from Annie into one?  

Being a manager is mostly about keeping your disgruntled employees at bay, and not letting them influence the gruntled hordes sashaying through your halls cool and carefree despite it all. Think you can handle that? 

Walking On Eggshells

At the outset of my career, I thought walking on eggshells was part of the gig. You strip down to your bare feet, placing your socks and shoes in a safe place, and hit the warpath. The thinking was that it’s far easier to traverse eggshells without the poundage of an industrial clodhopper. The point, after all, was not to pound the shells into dust.

Or so I thought. Whenever I landed a new job, I was careful not to ruffle any feathers either. But the more I analyzed the situation, the more I found myself wondering if the same superiors minding their own feathers had once been in the very eggs I was doing my darndest to keep intact. That’d really be something, huh? Either you’re going to carefully walk on eggshells or avoid ruffling feathers. But you can’t do both.

So instead of worrying about cracking eggs, why not accept that no chicken every entered the world through a seamless, eggless process? None of them walked out sans shell. Then how did we get this scared in the business world? Many a southern mansion use clamshells to line their winding garden paths. Would we throw a conniption upon discovery of a quail egg or two whenever a bivalve proved too brittle for the job? I hope not. 

I’m tired of it. Tired of the smell. Tired of picking eggshells out of my nail bed. Then picking nails out of my real bed. What was once a joy is now a chore. Why not bring up those forbidden subjects, picking at them like a hardboiled enthusiast? 

I’ve re-laced my Timberlands, shined and waxed them, fully committed to walking on eggshells with some gusto. You end up cracking them either way – shoe or no shoe. The purpose of any job is not to impress the higher-ups with your diligence and work ethic. It’s to gather up enough eggs for an impromptu quiche, a haphazard frittata, or the bit and pieces for a quick Benedict without the help of hollandaise. 

At lease employers haven’t switched eggshells for hot coals yet. But come winter, you watch. 

Redaction Sauce

From the pantry of Googlielmo Macaroni, this recipe was discovered during the foreclosure process. These sheets, stained with everything you’d find in a kitchen, plus several things you’d hope to never find, were brought back to life through forensic archaeologists working for clams. Not clams as in money, but clams. As in cherrystones, little necks, steamers. You name it, they consumed it - with lemon.

1 ream of top-secret government documents

1 cup of black ink

½ cup of balsamic vinegar

1 black Sharpie^®                

½ cup of melted butter

1 metal ruler

1 bottle of dry white wine

1 teaspoon of tarragon or rosemary

Choose the most important sections of your trove to redact first. This way, should any investigators barge in while you’re preparing things, the really seedy stuff will be safe. This could take hours or even days to sift through. But anything with “torture” in the subject line or “potentially criminal” ought to raise any alarm bells. Remember, you’re not only saving your own skin (for my chicharron recipe see page 37) but anyone else who may one day find themselves in a similar predicament. 

As a rule of thumb, cross out any name of a person you like. Vendettas can be exacted through leaving your enemies names visible. However, should they decide to testify against in a plea deal, watch out. Resist the impulse to sign your work at the end of it. This isn’t school and you’ll only be graded poorly for leaving evidence in. Showing your work is not rewarded. 

The ruler is for making clear black rectangles. Blobs, though serviceable, don’t have the same cache as an angular box running its way down a sheet of war crimes.  

The wine is for you. I’ve found from personal experience that felonies are complemented by a chilled Sancerre. 

Variations:

If this is too much work or if you’re worried about future prosecution, a paper shredder usually gets the job done. However, there are people whose entire job is to put the pieces together. 

 

Get an empty oil drum and start a sizable, contained fire to burn your documents. Don’t stand too close and always do this one outdoors. Be mindful of forest fire risk. You have enough crimes on your plate as it is.

The Road to Surfdom

With a streak of sunscreen running down the bridge of their nose and a hemp bracelet given to them by a childhood sweetheart, surfing, and thus, surfers, have taken the summer Olympics by storm. Oddly, it’s all happening in an even year. So much for consistency. It’s no wonder they rely on a board. 

Many followers of the games are enthused now that a new sport has been added to the ledger. Not me though. Surfing, when done on the sea, requires a strange brew of skill, stupidity, and dumb luck – emphasis on dumb. Plus, the athletes aren’t the ones who create the waves, what produces the environment to surf in the first place. Whether you believe it has to do with our moon’s sordid relationship with tides or the fickleness of Poseidon, one thing is clear. It has very little to do with the sunbaked surfer climbing aboard his sheet of fiberglass to catch some serious air. These cowabunga cowboys aren’t the makers of their own destiny – they rely on others to do so. 

But where’s the fresh set of medals to hang proudly around Poseidon’s trident? Where’s the official Olympic plaque headed to the Sea of Tranquility on a space vessel? Not happening. We’re lauding the surfers, the least interesting part of this dynamic struggle between man, nature, and the gods. 

The other glaring issue, as blinding as the sun’s reflection in a pair of newly minted shades, is that surfing as we know it, isn’t even the most interesting type of surfing. 

There’s couch surfing. The practice of living beyond your means through leeching off friends and strangers alike. It requires a flexible back, fungible bank account, and a soul devoid of shame. If that doesn’t describe an athlete, what does? 

Car surfing is a low IQ, high intensity workout that requires neither auto insurance nor a driver’s license. The wherewithal to climb onto someone’s hood for an open-air cruise is the only thing standing between you and asphalt. 

Yet a single type of surfing stands well above everything that came before it. Channel surfing. For a brief, idyllic time in the late 90s, channel surfing, more than even typing, showed a person’s manual dexterity and digital manipulation. Channel surfing surged as our national pastime during this period of sudden prosperity, reaching its creative zenith during the ascendancy of satellite dishes and cable television. The end of history proved to be the beginning of relaxation. To think, an entire generation of children raised on Netflix and Hulu have no idea what it took to channel surf. They will never know what it’s like to turn on the TV with no idea of what to watch and yet, find an 80s bildungsroman or an obscure game show in need of an audience. Today, they go into evening knowing exactly what they are going to watch. It’s the difference between the painful repetition of stand-up comedy and the high-wire intensity of improv.

If I turned on my TV and saw an arena full of sweat-stained popcorn-chomping channel surfers holding onto a universal remote like a pilot toggles his trusty joystick, I can guarantee you one thing – I’m not changing the channel anytime soon.