Schtick Razors

Regular razors are no fun. They’re one trick ponies, only good for shaving your face, your legs, or your you-get-the-idea. Sadly, the blades, like a relative inching towards their wit's end, become blunter over time. So the moment you get attached to one, there it goes, straight into the nearest receptacle.

Not Schtick Razors. At Schtick, the blades get sharper with each passing slice. They trim you, yes, but they also cut you - severely. So you have to be careful. But once they’re done with you, they’re just getting started contributing to the planet. 

Schtick Razors are perfect for the hellaciously hirsute, but also tailor-made to snip strewn bits of Concertina wire sticking out from a split rail fence on a two-hundred acre working cattle ranch.  

The primary pickle most Schtick users face is their face. After dozens of tiny cuts, bloody blemishes, and patches from missed spots, most become overwhelmed with despair and a sense of authentic ugliness. That’s to be expected. You’re not alone. 

Because one of the reasons our blades last so long is that people stop using them to shave after the first week. Once you see the mangled mess you’ve become, Schtick turns into a helpful tool for construction workers, gardeners and any familiar with the basics of self-defense. 

We didn’t try to make the safest blade. Nor did we seek to make the smartest. What we did was create a blade so sharp that most local law enforcement agencies rebuffed our generous blade donations.

How can this be? Most people don’t realize that scientifically, human skin is closer to diamonds than other types of skin. This is true. And like diamonds, the best way to cut human skin is with more human skin (abbreviated in our communication materials as HS). We’re a vehemently anti-fur company because we have skin in the game. Yours. 

Call it a cheap schtick if you must. But it works and it’s making us lots of money. When you see that price tag, you'll know there’s nothing cheap about it. Ask yourself this: when’s the last time you used a Gillette razor to clear brush? 

Make it Schtick.

Get Thee To a Cannery

Canneries are not my area of expertise. Having never worked in or around one, I just assume most everyone keeps their jars of peaches and cans of beans on the lowest shelf of their darkest cabinet. However, it’s recently come to my attention that those of us who like to be prepared for the next power outage or flash riot, have been doing it all wrong all along. In the absence of a legitimate cannery, what's the next best thing?

While you might find it hard to believe, I can read. And given my fraying attention span, ruptured by this era of infinite distractions, cans are among the most substantial forms of reading material at my disposal. I check on the ingredients, the brand history, and any recommended recipes listed with brief, idiot-proof cooking instructions. 

For years, I and everyone else, has done the same thing – stored their most important food items in a cool place. What a mistake that’s been.

The shadowy cupboard with dead insects and dust mites is not what is meant. Does that sound cool to you? Is that the place you would’ve cut class to hang out in? I scooped up my entire collection of produce and dry goods searching for a better, wiser location. I’ve had to think about something I haven’t considered since high school: what makes a place cool. 

Velvet ropes don’t hurt. Neither does a cavalcade of beautiful people impatiently standing behind it. But cool places aren’t merely superficial. There’s a great deal that goes into cool. Cool music, the sort of melodies that you can’t sing along to. Cool furniture, the sort of pieces you can’t sit on. And cool food, trendy snacks on tiny white plates that no matter how many you consume will never, ever fill you up. Cool art you won’t understand. Cool people you won’t relate to. But cool places are still made for the safe storage of canned goods. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. 

To locate cool, you have to start being cool yourself. Refer to people as cool cats and cats as cool people. Get a new haircut. Buy new clothes. Use words like "mod" and choose complicated handshakes over engaging conversation. 

I eventually found a perfect place to preserve my lima beans and pickle jars. I can’t tell you though. It is a former warehouse that’s now an underground discotheque. Frankly, it’s too cool as it is and more people finding out about it runs the risk of diminishing its necessary cool factor. Imagine returning to pick up my food in a few months to discover that the location has been renovated and is now within a strip mall beside a karate studio and an H&R block. I’d be very concerned about the food. Finding a cool place is even more essential to your happiness than an honest bank. Because these deposits you actually eat. And that sure holds my interest. 

Framing Devices

What does it meant to be innocent? Is it merely a person who acquits themselves well enough while on trial to receive a much appreciated not guilty verdict? That could be the case. I say “could be” because innocence and guilt aren’t as simple to separate as wetness and dryness. With those two major parts of any civilized situation, you can determine it by looking at someone’s hair, clothes or grabbing their material for confirmation of pre or post-wash bliss. 

In our own way, we’re all innocent of many things. More things than we even know. Then again, we’re also quite guilty of a great number of other things. Things other people don’t seem to realize. These are things that rarely rise to the level of criminality. No one is purely guilty or innocent. This makes the job of law enforcement incredibly easy. The reason they can scare you during a sudden interrogation is that you’ve done something. Maybe a different thing or a weird thing, but you’re not innocent. Then again, neither are they. 

But framing devices help center you. On the web as on the street. Yes, it’s true we hang pictures. But we used to hang people when verdicts were a tad simpler. And honestly, we still hang out all the time. For most, it’s their main mode of socializing. So at least linguistically, there’s something to all this routine hanging. To frame someone you need a level, a nail, a hammer, and a few extra screws should things go awry. How can you hope to turn the screws on someone without any?

Planting evidence is understandably frowned upon. But there is something beautiful about it. It’s like creating art from thin air. We plant gardens, don’t we? We hope to see them grow into a fully formed bastions of botanical beauty, boasting a big ol’ seedbed and rarefied herb section. The trunk, the dash, the pockets of cargo shorts are all suitable places for planting.

Framing might not be to your liking in the beginning. Just give it time. It’ll grow on you.  

Lack of Substance Abuse

 

It used to be everywhere. You never had to look too far to see it either. It would find you time and time again. You didn’t need to adopt bifocals, binoculars or get Lasik surgery. You could do any of those three things and see it more clearly I guess, but it was by no means mandatory. You could see it on your front porch after changing a lightbulb. It might arrive on your doorstep inside a steaming pizza box or in your pockets under used candy wrappers. 

It was all over. On billboards and bus shelters, within radio dramas and roller derbies. In between television programs and two main courses. During sporting events and special elections. Amid downpours and diatribes, it was there. It was a part of advertising, too. 

But it’s rarely on TikTok, it’s never on Twitter, and it’s hardly on Facebook. If it is on any of those by hook or by miracle, it doesn’t last for long. On TV, it’s about singing animals, dancing animals, snarky parents, and stupid people. It’s about smoke machines and smoldering resentment. It’s not funny.  

It used to be on ads all the time. On print ads in thick bold lettering with lots of supporting paragraphs, all written in the service of making an argument. A single point as it were. But not today. Now it's about capturing feelings like lightning bugs, in boxes with barely enough holes to breathe. It’s a way to spread a vibe or an emotion through a ballooning brand statement. 

So, where is it? The beef. You know, it’s not even in burgers anymore, impossible as that sounds. It was just here and now it’s gone. Maybe we’ll find it again before too long. I doubt it though. Should you discover it, smell it first. The only issue is that it tends to go bad after a while.

Interview: Dummy Up

Within the social hierarchy, ventriloquists are right above fire eaters and just below mimes, since what comes out of their mouths is only slightly less toxic. How is it possible that mimes, though silent clowns, still manage to maintain a French accent? I suppose it’s one of life’s great mysteries. Ventriloquists are people who literally sit on the coattails of their more talented halves. My radical position is that the ventriloquist/dummy relationship is a lot like the captor/hostage relationship. In our society, the dummies receive the shortest of shrifts. The defense most give is that it’s difficult to interview dummies alone. That might be true. But considering the outcry for thirtysomething pop stars living under the yoke of a predatory conservatorship, you’d think these wooden dolls would receive equivalent sympathy. Where are the stories on this hidden toll? With this in mind, I tracked down one of the more obscure dummies of the last fifty years, Red Wood. 

MTP: You seem to be rather unusual for a dummy, in that you have long since given up on teaming up with a ventriloquist. Why? 

RW: It’s not an equal partnership, not even close. But who’s really doing the work? The guy carrying around a suitcase full of laughs. You’d hear these horror stories about Charlie McCarthy and Knucklehead Smiff. Most dummies are insecure, believing they are lucky to be in the biz, afraid that if they speak out they will be blackballed. I went through a different venty every few months for years. That was until I decided to strike out on my own.  

MTP: How has the crowd reacted to you?

RW: Well enough. I performed pretty much nonstop during 2020. Lacking a respiratory system helped me get booked throughout the year.

MTP: But are you vaccinated? 

RW: I’m made entirely of wood.    

MTP: Does it confuse the audience to see a dummy on stage alone? 

RW: Perhaps. But why should it? We’re the ones who’ve been getting all the laughs, not the nerds standing next to us. 

MTP: What’s your theory on why dummies aren’t more respected within the industry? 

RW: How long do you have? Seriously though, it’s all due to my upbringing, my roots. 

MTP: Come again?

RW: I was carved from a giant sequoia illegally felled in Muir Woods. That never used to bother people, not in the 70s. But it’s an issue now. It’s a big reason why I’m still around. Most of my friends, made of maple and oak, have since gone to the Big Playground in the Sky. 

MTP: You’re saying they’re mulch. 

RW: That’s why I’d like to think. But I’ve heard horror stories about dummies ending up as mesquite. We can’t pass on our genes, only our stories.  

MTP: And you believe your woodenenss is an impediment to mainstream popularity? 

RW: Take puppets. People love puppets. Why? Cause they’re soft and fuzzy that's why. I’m made from the same material as your darn deck – and that’s only if you willingly violated certain environmental protections put in place after the Clean Air Act. It’s hard to compete when someone else reminds the audience of their favorite sweater.  

MTP: I see. 

RW: I have nothing against Henson and Frank Oz. But those guys had it easy compared to us. And don’t get me started on Pixar. Poor digital renderings taking jobs from hardworking dummies.  

MTP: Fire must be a constant concern. 

RW: It’s why I left Hollywood. 

MTP: Honestly, I’m surprised you still use the word “dummy.” It’s almost a slur.

RW: I tried for years to avoid it, correcting some and scolding others. Insisting audiences call me a “smarty.” I can’t run from who I am anymore. Frankly, I can’t even run. I’m a dummy and that’s that. 

MTP: What do you think it is about dummies that creeps many people out?

RW: That’s a loaded question. 

MTP: But it’s an important one.  

RW: It’s our faces. They’re extremely weird looking. There's no other way to say it.

MTP: I hate to agree, but you make a good point. 

RW: I’m not a political person, but when Mike Huckabee was running for president, I knew he had no chance. He looks like one of us. This country is simply not ready to elect a dummy. 

MTP: I wouldn’t say that. 

It was at this point I started to feel lightheaded from all the lacquer on Red’s body. He claims its necessary weatherproofing and how I’d never accuse a ventriloquist of “over-moisturizing.” Nevertheless, the rest of the interview became unintelligible. I knew I should’ve opened a window before starting.

First, Do No Smarm

Hosting a late-night television program is one of life’s greatest joys. It’s not a joy I have directly experienced, but then again, I’m no foie gras fiend and yet, I can still appreciate the succulence of goose liver from afar. Picture the live studio audience though (dead studio audiences never caught on and I seriously wonder why. It’s much easier to wrangle cadavers than a roomful of sentient beings). Clear, illuminated instructions dictating when to applaud and laugh keeps the atmosphere inside positive. Imagine how much more civilized society would be if other instructions were heeded in the same, non-negotiable way. The producers don’t care whether or not you find the show funny, all they care is that you laugh. There’s probably a moral or two somewhere in that. 

For the hosts, life is never the same once they slip that sound cable through their cummerbund and up their shirt. The sad truth is that their position within show business depends on the quality of craftsmen who ultimately build the set. These hammering hulks get to decide just how seriously each host is taken by the rest of us. 

Ideally, you want a platform that’s high enough to talk down to the audience but low enough to punch up at power. It’s a fine line to sit, one that requires clear measurements and a working level. 

Not too long ago, hosting a show such as this meant jokes, lots of jokes. A decent monologue followed by mindless banter with guests was the standard operating formula. But we’re not in the Catskills anymore. People don’t wear suspenders and kvetching is just another word missing a vowel. Today, these hosts pick up the slack where public education has failed. Teaching people how to think. It’s not like teachers are doing that anymore. They give us instructions and try, without jokes, to make the world a better place. 

Why can’t these shows adapt? In the 70s, it was perfectly acceptable to clothesline an opponent during an NFL game. Similarly, it was fine to make a throwaway line for a laugh. Now, it’s all about speaking truth to power and preventing concussions. The world changes and there’s no use fighting it. 

 

Turning Over an Old Leaf

It’s the first day of fall - autumn, sorry. For some, this means hours of sobbing in an empty tub, cursing summer’s relative shortness when compared to other, lengthier seasons. But for others who seemingly take life in stride, the mild sight of major decay is a wonderful time to still be alive. For them, a new season means turning over a new leaf.

Or does it?

Turning over a new leaf is a standard, accepted practice for changing one’s overall outlook. But no one thought to ask a few salient questions before jumping into the pile like a possessed peeper on peyote. For instance, where is this leaf? And what is this leaf? Neither are ever specified. It’s impossible to turn over a leaf that’s alive. I suppose that’s only partially true. You can turn over a living leaf – only by doing so you’ll kill it, twisting it out of the branch and onto the ground. Nice job, murderer. 

The ground, that’s where most people assume these “new leaves” reside. Fine, I can handle that. But only if we accept that by turning them, all we’re doing is mulching the ground. What’s on other side of a dead leaf? Worms? Those creepy crawler things that hide on the underside of a wet piece of bark in a desolate forest? The turning of leaves like that is frightening. It almost makes you want to go back to a simpler time without leaves, trees or wilderness. The desert, perhaps.

Good news. Leaves aren’t the only things worth turning over for a fresh start. And they’re not new if they’re on the ground. New to you maybe. But if I finally get around to watching The Magnificent Ambersons tonight, that doesn’t make the 70-year-old film new, now does it? 

How about a rock? Rocks are nice. Easy to clean, easy to hold, and they vary in size from pebbles to peaks. That's diversity. Turning one of them over is actually possible without destroying the entire ecosystem in the process. 

So on this day, the autumnal equinox, don’t turn over any leaves hoping it’ll steer you in the right direction. All you need is some stones.  

The Sweet NIMBY and BY

Every suburban schlemiel knows that when local politicians begin the tedious process of dipping their well-oiled beaks across your property lines, it’s time to dust off those mildly clever placards for an hour or two of semi-enthusiastic protesting down over at city hall.

You must be familiar with NIMBY, “not in my backyard,” the understandable view that things only matter insofar as they affect you directly. You have no real objection to the construction of a homeless shelter, just as long as it doesn’t uproot your recently installed swing set. I’m sure there are those who don’t take the state claims quite as literally, contending that “backyard” is a general, umbrella term meaning neighborhood. 

Not me.

I’ve seen too many weird people wearing hardhats climbing atop my fence line to believe it means anything other than a total affront to my backyard. Yet there are other phrases, that receive short shrift. There’s MIMBY (Mow in my backyard), the thinking goes something like this: you’re in my yard, the lawnmower is right next to you, why not take it for a few spins around the property and trim the grass? 

There’s YAIMFY (You’re actually in my front yard). This happens mostly in coastal communities where it can be confusing for non-boaters to understand how what faces the water is technically the front yard and not what you pull up to in a delivery truck and paper hat. 

PIMBY is a a good one: please, in my backyard. Or SCIMBY: shuck corn in my backyard, though it's a purely summertime request. Then, of course, there’s COCODAPIMBY: Create or combine a deck and porch in my backyard. Why do we have to choose which is which? It’s never made sense to me. Porches and decks can be the same, we just have to work at it a little harder than in the past. Something like this wouldn’t hurt either. 

Not all backyards are created equal. Some have sewage flowing straight through it. Others have paved over all that green goodness. Some have Adirondack chairs and classic Weber grills. Whatever you backyard looks like, all you need is a cute acronym to get the public's attention.

Hey pols, you listening? 

Fax the Rich

I’m not the gala type – and that includes apples, as I favor the supple creases of a Newtown Pippen over anything else. Though I wear breathtakingly stylish clothes that will no doubt one day end up behind the sturdy plexi of a museum installation, for now, they remain unfolded and carefully clumped at the foot of my bed.

I don’t get out much. I don’t attend soirees or grand openings, premieres or previews. I react to the world from the same place as my wild denim overcoat. The foot of my bed. It’s quiet and cool down there, surrounded by dust mites and resting breadcrumbs. I don’t sign autographs or duck after the dangerous popping of flash bulbs. I watch from afar.

All this has me thinking about the rich. Pondering over their wads of bitcoin, wondering what are we going to do with them? We could call them or leave bad reviews on Yelp. Why? I’m not quite sure. But that will an impression more short-lived than the sandy scribbles of a low tide diatribe. My solution is simple: fax the rich. 

First of all, it’s the last thing they’re expecting us to do. They might anticipate a tweet, a call, a direct message. But a fax? In 2021? I don’t think so. Yet faxes still exist, propping up many a business and reminding young people what that awful dial-up sound feels like when you call the number by accident. Faxing the rich is a way to get our point across. They won’t forget you, like the army of replying fools they counted with on Twitter and Instagram. Faxing is different. It stings a little more. Plus, it requires ink and paper, two things that despite their wealth, they might not always have in surplus. 

Rich people are just like you and me, only with a lot more money. That doesn’t mean you can’t get to them with a simple set of numbers. Their assistant might spend an entire week trying to figure out how to get their fax machine to work. But once that happens, there’s no stopping you. Now you have to decide what you’re going to write. 

You Incomplete Me

 

Amid the prevailing hustle culture that pervades online discourse, there is this perception that not finishing something is a sign of deeper, systemic rot. It is, as I’ve come to understand it, proof positive that the incompleter is going nowhere in life. Or at least in between nowhere and somewhere. But this is untrue. They are going elsewhere. 

The person who quits has the freedom to move. They aren’t forced, by some internal, tyrannical mechanism to finish that 1700-page book on the maritime history of The Dutch Antilles. Their loyalty is to their own sense of purpose and patience. Their attention guides them into new territories, free of social pressure. 

The way we think about incompletion is all wrong. When someone leaps out of a small plane the act of pulling their ripcord and watching as a rolled-up parachute unfurls from their backpack, inflating quickly and slowing their descent, is most certainly an incompletion. They can’t fly, after all. You don’t see birds engaging in similar hedging when flying south for the winter, reattaching their wings to handmade hang gliders somewhere over Georgia. But aren’t we happy they didn’t complete the fall? I guess that depends on how well you know them. 

When normal people, devoted members of the hustling elite, are subjected to a bad meal, they take it. Not incompleters. They get up, maybe paying for the check, maybe not, and walk out the front door. Why bother waiting for dessert?

If there’s one secret to not following through on things, it’s obviously

Pledge of Solidarity

I guess I was a blend of naïve, arrogant, and a tad dumb. Can I say that last part? It should be okay when talking about oneself. I never thought my past sins would resurface like the embers of fishing munitions used to dynamite piranhas on a rough Caribbean waterway. As it turns out, I should’ve buried them deep within the earth instead of doing what I did.

What I did was rub them out, believing my problems would disappear immediately afterwards. I can say now, against the advice of counsel, just how wrong I was then. All these years later, I still remember that day. I was doodling on a post-it when my pen veered off the reservation and onto the tabletop, leaving a few thick blue squiggly lines embedded into the wood grain for eternity or the next housefire. 

After a few hours huffing cleaning products, I found the bottle of Pledge I was looking for and went to work. 

What I didn’t account for was that while the ink had long since vanished, the grooves caused by my steady Bic are still there for all to see. I’m told the marks will be gone soon, when the entire table is professionally refinished with a toxic veneer and heavy wax seal. 

All those memories will go away, immortalized under a new hunk of material. What’s the fossil record if not a series of geologic smudges and imperfections? One thing early man definitely didn’t have was easy access to Pledge. Here's to a smoother, shinier future.

Convoluteulogy

There’s this town, Snowclaw, in way upper Canada, practically the Arctic Circle, where they get about twenty minutes of daylight every six months and temperatures have only started rising above freezing in the last decade or so. A place so cold, local moths don't even come up for the Aurora Borealis. Old chunks of coal do little in this part of the Great White North. So you can imagine that laughter, or some frostbitten equivalent is not just a desirable outcome for the rosy-cheeked population (all fifteen of them), but a surefire method of survival. Just about the one activity as good as sucking the nutrients from a generous portion of whale blubber. But those days, like so much in Snowface, have changed. 

Still, the fast chattering one feels from hearty chuckling is enough to melt any icicles dangling from one’s shamelessly exposed extremities. And in this town of Snowshoe there’s this class where people learn skills and trades that hopefully take them far away, much closer to the equator, where the only things freezing are the fruity cocktails. 

The class is small, since the town of Snowdog is small. Occasionally, the students ask questions of the professor. The teach, I think his name is something like, Aldo N. Crommand, a half Italian, half French-Canadian polymath, who always does his best to answer. He’d give them breathing exercises for the warmest way to laugh and help anyone confused at what exactly it meant to tag a joke. It took a few classes to explain that it didn’t involve shoving snowballs into someone's exhaust pipe. Though that keeps happening whether Aldo likes it or not. 

One day he was up there detailing what life was going to be like in Snowcap after the pandemic subsides for good. It wouldn’t change much, he explained. People already wore masks, no one ever got closer than six feet, and kids had been homeschooled since the early 19^th century. Though most of those kids are long gone by now. One student in the back raised his hand and Aldo generously called on him.

“Do you think that’s the norm?” 

Aldo started talking without a single pause. This was not a subject he was unfamiliar with.

“Sure, I think it’s the norm. But nowadays the norm goes way past hygiene and that sort of soapy, sudsy stuff. Think of it. When did it become the norm that when a celebrity, regardless of rank or box office bankability, arrives in the Great Beyond^™ the red carpet is unfurled for them here on earth? Not like it used to be, boy, I tell you what. Candles aren’t lit, tears aren’t shed, and eight and a half by eleven glossies aren’t laid out like wreathes at nearby historical markers. Instead, we all post our remembrances on social media that aren’t so much about the deceased as they are about us. Stories about how we were touched once upon a time. Posts that prove we knew the departed better than most, possessing some of that nice hidden knowledge for a little pop culture currency and a chance at fleeting, viral stardom. Make it about you, not them, they say. You’re alive with a fluctuating follower count, and they, of course, are not.”

“How long’s this been the norm?” 

“Oh, I dunno. But if I had to guess, and what's teaching if not guessing, then I would say since at least 2009. Basically whenever that Zuckerman fellow starting sticking his paws into our collective social circuitry and mucking up the works,” said Aldo.

“I thought the Norm* used to be on SNL or something."

“That’s a different norm. That norm was the exception.”  

*RIP

Fool Hand Luke

 

What we have here is a failure to enunciate. I see it all the time. Actually, I hear it all the time. Or really, I don’t hear it all the time, and that’s precisely the problem most of the time. Mumbling, that low pitch hardboiled-egg-mouthing of each and every syllable, has reached epidemic proportions in many portions of the country. 

It’s hard to say why this is the case. I tend to put the blame on hard candy and the universal affinity for texting. When it comes to something like LOL, do you say “Lowell” like the forgotten textile town located at the great confluence of the Merrimack and Concord Rivers, the very same home of that boxer Monsieur Bale starved himself in order to win some little gold statue? Or, do you laugh out loud, wildly guffawing until the tears run down your face and ribbons of mucus cover your cheeks? Me? I wouldn’t know. There’s no manual on text etiquette, at least not one I’d take seriously.

So people mumble. They pick the first “t” out of interesting like a fresh curl sinking ever deeper into their hearty bowl of steaming chowder before it settles on a final, creamy resting place. They drop the final two letters of “God,” turning it into “gah” the sort of guttural utterance you can imagine someone saying during a physical. “Now open wide and say 'gahhhh'.”

They ask for a can of “Pep” in between corn dogs and stuffed animals, as if the good Doctor Pepper attended 7 years of soda medical school incurring massive coin debt, spent 5 more years as a vending machine resident, and another decade running the only fully carbonated ER in the country, only now to be disrespected by a careless fool, too parched to speak straight. As Pepper always says, “Mr. Pibb flunked the MCATs and I aced them. And yet, despite that huge intellectual gulf, we’re mistaken for each other on a daily basis. Imagine if Babe Ruth had to contend with people thinking he was a candy bar or worse, George W. Bush fending off those who wanted to know what Moses was saying to that burning boxwood all those years ago.”

There are exceptional mumblers who end up achieving great things, staring in big budget movies, running small dictatorships, or polishing the steel on an expensive espresso maker. But they are exactly that, exceptions. Most people need to be heard to be understood. Speak up, would you?

Getting Along Famously

Being famous was once quaint. There was really nothing to it. Unless you were a Christ-like figure or a Napoleonic general, you lived anonymously. The birth of film changed all that. But not by much. Some bulb-flashing interloper might snap a semi-candid picture of you inhaling The Brown Derby’s legendary Cobb – rolls and all. However, signs of your perceived decadence were cheered by scores of fans eating up your image in monthly periodicals. You brought a pen everywhere you went in case someone had something for you to sign. Autograph seekers weren’t picky in those days, choosing cocktail napkins over framed photographs with a stamped certificate attesting to its legitimacy. They wanted your John Hancock and nothing else.

The famous came and went as they pleased, which wasn’t particularly taxing since there were only a few of them. Cary Grant was one and maybe there was another guy with a mustache and a woman with a long, flowing gown. It’s not important though. Now, people don’t want signatures for their scrapbook – they want more. So much more. 

When the average non-famous person sees a member of the growing famous population, they want a lot. First off, they want a picture to prove it happened. They need friends, family, and enemies to acknowledge their run-in with a run-of-the-mill celeb. Then they want a restaurant recommendation. Next, it’s “will you be on my Podcast?” since the non-famous outnumber the famous in the podcasting sphere. The Wall Street Journal predicts that by 2030 most of the country will be famous – not that’ll mean anything anymore. The bar for fame has been lowered to such an eminently trippable degree, that to remain obscure and unknown will eventually carry with it a sort of misplaced notoriety. A kind of anti-fame, which will surpass the top-earning stars. 

Once everything is recorded, the people fade into the background, becoming noise. Instead of snapping pics of you tipping your salad plate to a steep angle for optimal consumption (well over forty-five-degrees), the salad itself is the story. That’s what we photograph when we’ve lost patience with our fellow man. Salads. Cobbs, Chefs, and Caesars.

"Excuse me, could I get a picture with your crouton. I'll be quick, I promise."

Some world.

 

Playing the Victim

We’re looking for anyone between the ages of 1 day old (union rules, sorry) and 100 years old (it’s an insurance thing) to be a part of a grand television project, a mini-series of sorts.  

So who are we looking for? That depends…

Have you ever ordered something at a folksy delicatessen only to find out the cutters behind the counter held the mayo when you specifically asked for it? If you walked away and “let it go” then this role is not for you. We want someone who confronted the bread boy and demanded an explanation for this perceived, highly imprecise slight. Someone who relished the moment, performing in front of horrified lunchers and launched into a diatribe on the importance of condiments.  

Taking things personally takes practice and years of paranoia. Do you ever feel like everyone is looking at you when out in public? Good. Because they are. They’re thinking, “what a sensitive SOB.” They don’t have to say anything to offend you, do they? Their existence is what takes you off your kilter and out of your kilt. 

We like sensitivity. We don’t want someone who walks across hot coals during a corporate retreat pain-free. But if your feet are getting prickly simply reading about just such a briquette walk, then this might be for you.

Because we’re not looking for actors or actresses and definitely no thespians. We’re looking for real people with real problems. 

Please include a headshot and a lengthy description of past lives. References are superfluous, unless they’re famous.

Must be available to work from tonight until the foreseeable future. This could take a while.   

 

All decisions will be final, capricious, and without merit.

The Autumn Windbag

 

The Autumn Windbag is a moron,

Blustering in from TV,

Constantly wrong, he drones along,

Yammering incoherently.

His collar is vermin-eaten,

He wears a bag of trash,

With a tinfoil hat above his head,

Spewing some balderdash.

He groans as he opines dumbly,

A pundit’s brain of mold.

And the producers shake and quiver and fake,

As he embodies the perfect scold.

The Autumn Windbag is a nitwit,

Pontificating just for fun.

He’ll embarrass himself and act like a bum,

And cry when he’s cancelled and done. 

*With apologies to the late Steve Sabol and the great John Facenda. 

Horse Dean Wormer

Standing at attention in a barn, on his hind legs mind you, was Horse Dean Wormer, a noted thoroughbred and well-respected college dean. There, surrounded by hay and manure, he was addressing one of his most trusted students, an unctuous billy goat named Bill, neighing and bristling at every turn. 

“What's the worst group on campus?”

“That would be hard to say, sir. They are each creative and conspiratorial in their own special ways,” said the goat. 

“Enough. I’ve read the reports, followed the disciplinary history very closely. Remember, horses have binocular vision, so there’s very little I can’t see. Really, it’s just those flies that are always landing between my eyeballs. But let me ask you, who did shots of bleach during Alumni Laundry Day? Who stole my diamond-studded horseshoes during the winter dance? And who filled the teacher’s lounge trough with rolled oats when everyone knows I, and every professor at this darn school, prefer the steel cut precision of the great John McCann? Every Halloween the trees are filled with N95 masks and every spring the stables explode.”

“You’re talking about Delta, sir. They’re a substantial variant from the rest of us.”

“I know that, dummy. This year it’s going to be different. I want them off campus. The standard six feet isn’t going to cut it.”

“What do you intend to do? They are already scheduled for vaccination.”

“Then as of this moment they are on Double Secret Vaccination.”  

“Double Secret Vaccination?”

“There’s a little-known portion of the college constitution that clothes me in immense emergency power to preserve order during times of crisis. Kind of like now. We can’t have another laundry day fiasco, now can we? Plus, I need the medicine they’re taking. I’m a horse with an upset stomach and what are they? 

“It depends who we’re talking about, sir. But I believe most of them are pigs. Porcine fellows with an above average sense of smell. 

“Then I hope they know where to find truffles, because their days here are numbered. Question: do we have any clean syringes left over from The Orientation Day Derby?”

Horse Dean Wormer now stands in his office in front of the members of Delta, a campus cult famous for their aversion to bathing and the scientific method.

“You all make me sick,” said Horse Dean Wormer.

“Why’s that, sir?”

“Because I have worms and I’m missing my medication. Do you know what someone with worms is supposed to do?

“Take them apple picking?”

“Go fishing?”

The group starts chuckling and high fiving. 

“You think this is a joke, don’t you? Well, your whole life has been a joke.”

“The good stuff better be on my desk by noon tomorrow or else."

“Or else what?”

“Or else I think I have a sudden hankering for BLTs.”

War on Rugs

Here we are spending time waxing and washing our floorboards, looking for some of that nice reflective grain to mug for the varnish. Enough sheen to reflect and recharge. We sand down the edges, touch the molding, sob over subtle scratches, and engage in highly pedantic exchanges surrounding the quality of good wood. Yet when it’s all said and done, we carpet the place, covering our exhaustive work in thick Persians and creepy bearskins (wishing the head possessed similar prophesizing abilities as that fella from Delphi or a shiny new magic 8 ball, learning the future simply by shaking it). That and long, winding runners.

Why is that? Why must we willingly cover up reality at every chance? What’s the purpose of wood when we pretend it isn’t there? The very real risk of a splinter or stubbed toe teaches us humility or makes us consider adopting better footwear. Stains on wood add to it, giving them character. Stains on carpet remind you of spilled sour cream or worse, losing their luster and darkening your dreams of floorplan independence.

There are musicians, some of whom I won’t name, others of which I can’t name, who cover the stage with thickly threaded Orientals beneath their amps and snaking cords. Any aesthetic sin is accepted in the name of acoustics, as they all pray at an audiophilic altar nightly (twice on weekends if there’s a late show). 

I want carpeting ripped up in convention centers and chain hotels. I want it out of international airports and transit hubs. I want to see the staples stacked up in the garbage. I want to hear steps when someone is coming up from behind, not the silent treatment of a shoe-on-rug pedestrian. Carpeting these public places is akin to Major League Baseball’s love of artificial grass – another sickening form of athletic carpeting. 

It’s okay to be a doormat as long as you don’t own one. Just ask any tech bro you come across. They’re always there to welcome you inside if you promise to take your shoes off first.

Greener Berets

I do a lot for the environment. Some you can see, most you can’t. Because of that, I am going to show everything to you. Otherwise, how am I supposed to get the credit? I could just tell you all the things I do. Like how I always turn my many air conditioning units to exactly 68 degrees Fahrenheit, instead of a much cooler, far more inefficient 64. It’s the little things that count. I could also tell you about how I refill plastic water bottles with rainwater. I still drive a ton, but I make sure to park farther down my long, winding driveway so the walk back is rather arduous. There are times I use my second car to drive up, but that's extremely rare. I clean up dog excrement with my reusable public radio tote bag. And I don’t even have a dog. We all just have to do our part.

I started taking private jets one way instead purchasing the far more economical roundtrip ticket. It’s always awkward when I wave goodbye and wish my skymates a friendly farewell in Omaha or wherever we’re refueling this time. There’s a lot more I could tell you. How instead of using the fridge I leave food out on the counter now. I try my best to eat it before it goes bad or the neighborhood critters get to it. It’s a a little game I play with them, strengthening the interspecies bond among the locals. Or something.  

But I don’t want to tell you everything I do. How I wash my clothes once every six months on a piece of jutting Manhattan schist located in a public park several miles away with the help of some teamster buddies and a few hundred galloons of collected rainwater. I don’t just collect the stuff in tiny bottles. That you might have already guessed.

The thing is, I want people to know this about me without having to tell them. Without having to stop them on their merry way and learn from the best (me). I have a solution. I started wearing a green beret to signal my good works. I know, I know, people might think I’m French. Which is fine, most of the time, especially when ordering snails. But green berets are rare. Black, sure. Red, on occasion. But green – that’s mine and mine alone. Reach out if you want one, seeing as I had to buy them in bulk to get a better deal. 

I could go on, but the beret should say it all. C’est magnifique.