Walk and Chew Gum

Should you follow the news with any regularity, a phrase you’ll hear with disturbing frequency is “walk and chew gum.” It’s supposed to imply that good people, smart people, adult people, are capable of doing two things at once. This feels true enough, but walking and chewing gum isn’t as easy as it sounds. An active display of public mastication. 

The truth of the matter is that most people can barely do one thing at once, let alone two things as disparate as walking and chewing gum. For many within the prevaricating pundit class, simply stringing two words together is considered by their superiors an outright miracle. You wouldn’t expect these individuals to speak extemporaneously on current events, any more than you would imagine one of your appliances to break down the pitfalls of the healthcare system. A talking head has a one track mind, keenly staying in their well-trodden lane. Much like your freezer choosing not to surprise you with a fully-cooked meal. 

One thing is plenty for many. Breathing anyone? But for those of us able to walk and chew gum, we know that both activities come with an array of challenges. For one thing, walking for any length of time can make a person slowly, steadily pick up the pace. Instead of strolling casually past stationary rivals, you’re briskly ambling by. From there you might start jogging, only to run a little, before breaking into a dead sprint. At this point the gum is either dust or partially digested. Obviously, I can do it. Not that I waste time chewing gum. Chewing things you can’t eat is foolhardy. It raises the asme objections I have to mouthwash and snorkeling. Gargling is for the beverage bemused. 

So yes, walking and chewing gum, while out of reach for many, is still an embarrassingly low bar for the intrepid multitasker. Running a marathon and eating a chicken parm – now that’s a dual accomplishment worth touting. 

 

Special Delivery

Everyone’s a special, though not everyone is special. Not yet anyway. To be a special, all you need are three little sprigs in your hair, worn with Caesarian confidence. Some prefer biting a juicy Golden Delicious, a porcine thrill before the fires start-a-blazing. Replace your dandruff with genuine himalyan sea salt and you’re on your way. Swap body oil for olive oil and newcomers will start to get the picture. 

But being special is different. It involves decades of therapy, natural talent, financial stability, high-powered medication and dumb luck. You need loving parents who encourage you all the time, believe in your ability despite what any teachers say. You should wear clothes that stand out like a pristine snorkel mask and a feathered fedora. You can’t be special without being noticed. You want to ignore rules that others must follow. You want to park in loading zones and change lanes without a signal. You’re special.

While being a special involves little more than standing over an oversized plate and saying “bon appetit” in your best French accent. 

But specials are special. They only come around once a week or so, favored by those tired of the same options crowding a familiar menu. There’s nothing special to it. 

Matinee at the Hygiene Theater

Take your seats as quickly, quietly, and cleanly as possible. Just file on in. It doesn’t matter what your ticket says. I’ll go over all the ground rules before the performance begins. There’s plenty of time. Thank you, thank you.

Welcome to the Hygiene Theater, where things only appear clean. Those big jugs of hand sanitizer at the end of the aisle are actually empty, providing the illusion of cleanliness. The bathroom has no water. The pipes froze a few weeks ago and burst. If you absolutely must use the facilities, just place your hands underneath the faucet and pantomime washing them. The closest gesture is that of a magician waving his hand underneath a levitating assistant.

We still have extra ponchos and safety goggles underneath your seats from the last time Gallagher paid us a visit. Boy was that an object lesson in hygiene. A lot of people might not realize it, but he soaks each watermelon overnight, and that’s after sharing a bed with the mysterious fruit for weeks. Anyone you have a partner on stage, trust is paramount. The last thing the watermelon expects is a mallet – and that’s the point. 

The show will be a compendium of one acts. Suds is the opener. A short piece lasting no more than forty minutes where the great Joe Pesci, famous for his extravagant use of obscenities in film, holds a bar of soap in his mouth for the duration. The length of the show varies depending on Joe’s mouth. I’ve seen him go for nearly an hour, while some nights, it’s five minutes and out. He’s a mercurial figure, to say the least. Before you get all annoyed, we don’t pay heed to spoilers here. It’s better knowing what to expect than to be surprised by a piece of watermelon rind to the retina. Pesci is considering taking the show on the road, playing every bathhouse and tile joint on the east coast. He's been quoted in the Daily Mail and other outlets saying what a relief it is not to have to remember his lines. 

The second show is called, My Korantine, about a Saudi Arabian prince praying daily for the pandemic to end. Hand washing takes on new meaning in a country where severance packages are a basket of severed hands. But at least they’re clean. 

The third show, Monsieur Nettoyer, follows Mr. Clean, now living in France (a wide beret covering his bald head). Clean, or Nettoyer, as Parisians call him, makes house calls to the unclean and uncouth, giving them more than scrubbing tips. He’s a bitter man, clean on the outside, filthy on the inside, angry at how his usefulness and importance has fallen as everyone suddenly cares about hygiene. It’s a dark play with a dark ending. 

Talking is fine as long as it’s kept at a rolling whisper. Remember to wear one of the comedy or tragedy masks for the duration of the performance. Take your shoes off, get comfortable and enjoy the shows.

What’s the Hackstory?

 

Television commercials, unlike other popular works of art, tend not to interest historians. Their focus is elsewhere, on stuff that ends up under glass, mummified for eternity. So it’s been a real boon to the advertising community to learn that the origins of many recent commercials are being extremely well-documented. Just what we needed. Otherwise, future generations won’t appreciate the particular staying power of robot dogs. They might wonder where are all the robot cats and robot squirrels went. Thankfully, the record is being corrected as we speak. A hologram of the late Studs Terkel has been doing the animatronic lion’s share of the work. Finally, no one has to wonder where genius comes from.

Here are a few excerpts from Terkel’s upcoming work, where he interviewed hundreds if not dozens of self-proclaimed industry disruptors recounting their fleeting moments in the sun. Not in the shadow of the sun, well-lit and full of Vitamin D, but straight into that great big burning ball of fire, positively Icarusian in spirit and ambition.  

“So I told the team, you don’t need an idea when you can make an obscure reference to an 80s action movie.”

“Other works of art can have sequels, why can’t commercials? I don’t remember anyone criticizing Michelangelo when he returned to the Sistine Chapel, a quarter century after painting the ceiling to put a few finishing touches on the altar wall.”

“Celebrities will do anything for money.”

"It's called the SNL technique. Write one joke and repeat it over and over. There isn't much more to it than that." 

"The product isn't important."

"Let's poll the room: what's your favorite TV show? If the main characters drove a car in the original show then we can use that to our advantage now."

“My aunt drinks bleach. Says it works better than probiotics.”

“Regular people miss screensavers.”

“We can’t drink to excess, but why can’t machines? Imagine the existential ennui of a toaster compared to your accountant.” 

 

“Who directed that depressing movie that won a bunch of awards? Someone get her on the horn. I bet she likes beer.”

“No one knows what an Ancient Greek accent sounds like. For all we know, it sounded just like an Austrian one.”

"I'd enjoy more tongue twisters if they weren't so hard to say."

I’m looking forward to the book’s release. Then again, I might just wait for the YouTube supercut. 

Vladimir Poutine

 

To some, it’s merely a relic of the Cold War. Created in the 1950s when “duck and cover” was no longer the advice given by a French cook believing in the patient simmering of braised canard. I’m talking about poutine, that savory symbol of Quebécois culture, spilling out of paper plates of ravenous fans during the intermission of a Canadiens game. 

In 2022, you’re started to see certain people push the dish on unsuspecting diners. People who haven’t heard about the food and upon seeing for the first time are convinced something is terrible wrong. Either with the ingredients themselves or the mental acuity of the chef, since whoever would prepare such a dish surely has a few screws (scroux in Fr.) loose. There’s at least one issue that I can see.

Poutine isn’t good for you. Plain and simple, it’s junk food of the highest order. And there’s no planet we’ve yet discovered where a steady diet of french fries covered in cheese curds and thick brown gravy is the hallmark of a health nut. It’s not for everyone. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t those pushy souls, insisting you finishing what’s on their plate even before you’ve had a chance to enjoy what’s on your own.

If you want to eat it? Go right ahead. But not everyone likes it. How is that so hard to understand? It’s an invasion on your insides, an assault on the body like little else. The world would be a better place if people just ate what was on their plate. The food is greasy and can’t be trusted. Some aspects of it, especially the gravy, remains a state secret. Some people enjoy the intrigue, while others just want a little borscht.

We could use some preparation, eh? 

Railing Against Something

 

I grew up without a balcony, one to climb up or jump off. I couldn’t step out in the fresh air and reassess things, gazing into the distance, perched from the ideal height with which to ridicule a neighbors’ paltry pruning. Had that been the case, I certainly would’ve had a railing. Not bars redolent of a minimum security penitentiary, perfectly tuned for the rhythmic, repetitive tapping of a metal coffee cup. No shivs to speak of. It would've been a sturdy barrier of entry or ya know, exit.

Most railings are against something, like a wall or a well-defined geologic formation. But railing against something is easy. It provides you the necessary support to stand out above the clouds, while still living on the ledge respectability. It’s safe, given OSHA regulations and the litigious culture we have chosen to reside in. Anyone can rail against anything, as long as it can support their weight. As a nation, we're getting bigger, which is no small detail. Belt tightening, though rendered obsolete amid the onslaught of sweatpants culture, is still a good indicator of a struggling society. 

Railing against nothing though? Now that’s another matter. Most people feel naked railing against nothing, believing they are not cut out for such a display of hubris. At least going out on a limb involves a limb, however fragile it may be. You don’t see gargoyles complaining from their resting place. They don’t say much, mostly gargling rainwater, as others try to overcome a fear of falling.  

Can it get windy up there? Might you have to fend off lost birds? Will a cozy rapport with air traffic control improve your mood? Clearly. However, what you’ll find is that life without railing leaves room for lot of other types of behavior. After years of fantasizing about life as a musketeer, you could finally take up fencing. All that’s left is a life of strict gatekeeping. 

Oh, and one last thing: Don’t look down. 

Singeing In the Rain

For the fair weather griller, that person cooking under the woeful misapprehension that grilling is a pastime best in moments of sunshine, starlight and moon glow, rain is anathema to everything they hold sear. These are the people who, after a drop of harmless drizzle, run sprinting to shelter, incapable of incorporating a little rainwater to their bone dry rub. What’s a marinade without some added H2O anyway? 

When a fire blazes during a torrential downpour it is man’s way of telling the Big Guy, we’re onto his mind games and over his natural histrionics. We don’t need to wait around for a lightning strike to get our cigars smoking. In his world, our world, he’d like to be the only one wielding fire during moister times. A Christmas tree lightning has a very different meaning where he comes from. 

One of the added benefits of grilling in the rain is that very few people stand over you, commenting on doneness. Instead, they stand off to the side, dreaming of droughts and a cloudless future. If someone can’t see your steak, how can they critique it? In weather like this, you are left to your own devices - usually the flashlight of a soaking wet iPhone. There is no one watching your every move, remarking a bit too loudly when you drop a burger patty on the ground and casually place it back on the grates. No witness, no problem. 

This practice is not without its risks. There is the tendency by the griller to feel the need to use too much water when cooking something like fish. The thinking is that fish come from the water, so a little extra won’t hurt them. In fact, they may just start swimming right there on the coals. Maybe if you’re making fish soup, but not when under fire. While water shouldn’t be feared, it shouldn’t be worshipped either. Water is merely ice that’s lost its way. 

There are many opinions when it comes to this type of recreational activity. Like any porcine capitalist, I have more than my share. But there is no hotter take these days than peeling your own eyebrows off  the back of a top-of-the-line Weber. That's how you know you're done. 

I Don't Have Many Heroes

Why should I? It’s not like I’m always in the mood for one. You can't have them all the time. Could be the flavor. They often appear when you least expect them, but actually need them the most. When your appetite for something more is feverishly high. When you’re so hungry you’re not even hungry anymore. It’s a zen-like state that tends to occur in the seconds before fainting. But what blissful moments those truly are. It's the reason why I would never own a marble coffee table. For heroes, making bread is a core part of modern economic theory. Basically everyone from Marx to Friedman agrees.

A hero arrives in your life differently. You see one for the first time and think, “who does this serve?” The answer is usually right in front of you, as long as you happen to be looking into a mirror at the time. Despite such discerning taste for the patently heroic, that doesn’t mean I opt for something lesser, like the Philadelphian’s heralded hoagie. I was in my late twenties before I knew that “gyro” was not pronounced with the same g-force needed to get through the word, “gyroscope.” Apparently that delicious mess is nearly a hero but not quite - a yee-ro, as it were. 

 

But that’s not the same and it’s not what we’re talking about. The thing you initially notice about having a hero is that they’re filling. They take up space, looming larger than anything else in the vicinity. For me, one hero is plenty. But some people these days collect them like shopping cart screwballs, building their fortune one five cent beer can at a time. These hero hoarders have watched too many contests from the Coney Island boardwalk, where gluttons stuff their faces for gout and glory.

 

There are questions that remain unanswered to this day on the subject of heroes. For instance, is the opposite of a hero a villain or a salad? Are there heroes in the United States Congress or is that legislative body another degraded institution that's turned into a genuine parliament of bores? 

 

The best heroes stay with you after your early connection, and long after they are long gone. They’re stuck inside you. While there are medical procedures used to remove them, lobotomies aren’t what they used to be. You’re best off learning to live with the hero. Could you enlist a witchdoctor to start anew? Of course, that's always an option. But since it's a cash business, that can create an entirely new set of headaches. Imagine being left without a hero and with a major tax problem. Whatever spells they say, it’s not worth it. 

 

Heroes get copied all the time, too. But a real hero isn’t simply the sum total of the ingredients therein. There’s another element, one that can’t be quantified and barely qualified. Is it a secret? I can't tell.

Can a hero make you sick? Naturally. When they’re left out too long in the public eye and begin to change shape, it’s probably a wise decision to move on. But the best heroes don’t change for anyone, especially not their environment. Heroes make you want to probably, happily, and easily skip dinner. They keep you entertained. Heroes aren’t force-fed to you during interrogation, but welcomed during downtime. They aren't common either, despite what Subway says. 

 

And a hero isn’t the same thing as a role model. Nor is it the same thing as a roll model. Finding a hero is akin to finding a perfect pair of pants. But not just any pants, but bed pants. You know, pajamas or, I suppose you might call them, "PJs." Clothing that's extremely comfortable to wear around the house when no one is looking, yet something should you wear in public might give the impression that you've lost your mind. Strangers will wonder whether or not you wear night gowns to work and tuxedoes to sleep in. I say, let them wonder. Because other people thinking you're crazy isn't your problem. You're crazy. What do you care? 

 

RIP

Step Inside

When you enter someone’s home, any autonomy you may have is left on the doormat, along with the crumbs and the crud. Whether it says “welcome” or “whatever,” there it rests, never to make it all the way inside. It’s not uncommon for hosts to request every guest remove their shoes upon arrival. To them, the sight of well-worn boots holding onto more substance than a typical waffle iron can easily cause an immediate and entertaining psychotic break. It’s rather interesting considering the waffle iron’s iconic place in the annal’s of shoemaking. But walking through a doorframe with more divots than a grass-fed caddy is hardly a good first impression. 

 

Not everyone subscribes to quick and prompt shoe removal, especially for those who foxtrot through life sockless and fancy-free. For some, shoes must stay on despite any obvious mess tracking in underneath them. “You wouldn’t ask Secretariat to remove his horseshoes, would you?” There's a lot I wouldn't ask Secretariat. Including but not limited to his thoughts on fine dining or any opinions on adhesive.

 

I don’t buy into this binary paradigm. For too long, people are either barefoot buffoons or snickering sneakerheads. The truth is that shoes and feet can both be quite dirty and ruin a recent waxing or render a steam clean practically pointless. I have found a solution - and it's not a toxic chemical that strips any foe clean off. Using a series of bespoke Tupperware® containers, everyone from the Timberland obsessed to the naked footman must place either plastic or glass (their choice) around them. Take your shoes off, don’t take your shoes off, either way you’re going to be sitting on my couch, listening to my stories, while wearing Tupperware®. If I like you, I might even let you take the container home for leftovers. 

This way, there’s no politics or arguments around shoes and feet. Everyone is subject to the same demands and since Pyrex sponsors the dinner party, I profit from every social gathering – and quite handsomely. I don't care if you're comfortable. It's my home, after all. 

Big Euphemisms

The “Big Game” is barely over and most fans are just waking up. In a sunlit kitchen, they reach into a empty cupboard, a little bleary-eyed and unfocused, looking for the ideal “cereal receptacle.” This is no mere “salad vessel,” but something that General Mills in full military regalia, dreamed of when crunching in milk. On this Monday morning, extra is required to avoid an “awestruck” afternoon.

Last night saw the guzzling of libations, though interestingly enough, they took to the fermented beverage straight from the bottle, and not from a “ceremonial phiale” like many an Ancient Anthenian. Today, there will be no punch served from a “punch tub,” given the previous evening’s unchecked revelery. Rice in a simple “ceramic crater,” might settle the stomach to a point, but not to the degree the party left an emotional indentation. 

With a pantry full of rectangular boxed breakfast food, a “round Roman pasta dish” is not what they have in mind. Nor is a “meat bean basin” meant for a steaming pile of hearty goodness. The fact is, not all “half circular containers” are created equal.  Some people serve rice based on the depth of an individual item’s “concavity.” Despite the obvious vulgarity to the following statement, bathrooms on Sundays like this are more than simple “repositories.” 

No one else is up yet, but feelings of inadequacy and paranoia creep in, settling on the idea that they are living out their days like a “goldish in a glass thing”, gawked at by anyone who passes. This thought passes too, as memories rise to the surface of ancient haircuts during more fashionable times: the crew cut, the head shave, and the “jug do” with its unflattering angles. Then again, “life is just a bag of cherries.”  

Once sated, the subject turns to John Steinbeck, as it often does in the morning, with fantasies of tenant farming and hardship, wondering if they could’ve survived life in the “Dirt Times.”  

Now with a super football season over, most fans occupy their weekends with group recreation like rolling “plastic polyester projectiles down an oily alley.” 

Defund the Gazpacho Police

"Now we have Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work we do, spying on our staff and spying on American citizens.”

-Marjorie Taylor Greene, February 9, 2022

 

Twenty-seven years ago, in the basement of a Washington, D.C. soup kitchen, I took an oath. I didn’t swear on a Bible to uphold the Constitution like many of my civic-minded peers. Instead, I let a busboy I just met prick my finger with a rusty metal skewer and cover my screams with a piece of well-worn cheese cloth. I then placed the very same digit over a simmering stovetop, watching as a rolling blue flame engulfed this throbbing extremity, leaving a massive scar still visible today. While a torn, tomato-stained page of James Beard’s American Cookery burned up in my hands, I repeated the following words, “This soup comes before everything else. Before your friends, your family, your mother, your governor, your president. It's a thing of honor and a matter of taste.”

On that day, I willingly decided to devote my life to defending the supremacy of gazpacho. I risked everything to prevent other soups from entering the District of Columbia – no matter the cost or the smell. I wanted to stop people who thought tomato soup left out on the counter to cool and then quickly sprinkled with a little garlic powder somehow counted as the same thing. I wanted to make a difference.

So I raided senior citizens’ book groups hoarding bootleg chowder for homesick massholes in the reference section of a municipal library. I handcuffed French teachers serving their students illicit bowls of bouillabaisse in between grammar lessons. I locked up people leaking consommé from their cargo shorts. Try spelling consommé without first misspelling communist. It can’t be done. But I was just following orders – which, as any line cook knows, can come without warning or explanation.

Yet I lapped up everything the department said. How could I not? Gazpacho is extremely crisp, positively refreshing, and garlicky beyond compare. I honestly believed I was on the right side of history. The very idea that restaurants offer a rotating soup of the day was, in my view, an atrocity. I was one of the good guys. Or so I thought.  

Because in the beginning, it was truly exciting work. I was interviewed in Gourmet Magazine and appeared on Arsenio Hall. This was long before health fads and celebrity chefs changed the way ordinary people thought about soup. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if we were having any effect on society. I’d arrest some borscht dealer at noon and by 3 o’clock he’d be out on bail, slinging mulligatawny to a group of hungry coeds. We couldn’t keep up with the demand. That’s when I really started to question things. I figured Eliot Ness must’ve had a similar crisis of conscience somewhere between the sixth and seven thousandth keg he smashed apart with a pickaxe.

With the help of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, I’ve come to understand that the War on Soups, while perhaps noble at first, was a colossal mistake and an utter failure. I’m not proud of my role in it either. I planted bisque on people and stole parsley from the evidence room. I engaged in the notorious technique of “stop and whisk,” whereby I would attempt to improve the consistency of a suspect’s dinner by force. I ladled without asking, garnished by surprise and was always the one to take the first taste.

Gazpacho Police have no place in a free society. We can no longer incarcerate our fellow citizens whose only crime was untying a bouquet garni not quietly enough. What kind of person waits for hours in the bushes of a well-known senator simply to catch him in the act of preparing bone broth? Me, apparently.

Look, people are going to consume whatever soups they want, whether we outlaw them or not. On the black market or at the farmer’s market, they will always find a way to get their fix. Imagine having to legally start every sushi dinner with gazpacho despite miso being so readily available. Thanks to Marjorie Taylor Greene, you won’t have to.  

Two Sides To Every Story?

Out there, far from from shore, where birds approach the horizon line, floats a suspect idea which has taken hold in many circles from drum to crop. There, amid the sky and the clouds, it has gripped ahold of countless intelligent thinkers, a belief as firmly held as when the very same bird grabs for a leaping fish. But because this is about more than lunch, I must continue.

This idea of “bothsideism” presupposes a binary equation in every situation, namely when eating out. Where I come from, where the seagulls dance and dine, two sides is what you have for breakfast. Toast and a fruit cup. Bacon and home fries. Flapjacks and a slice of orange. How could anyone argue that there only two sides in this scenario? Whatever happened adding an extra avocado. 

Beneath the flickering neon of a 24-hour diner, people constantly order more than two sides. They are comfortable and confident enough to replace a standard green salad with spinach, pine nuts and a hint of minced garlic. They order off the menu. They do as they please. They load up on multiple sides in a tapas-like sea of small plates. Both sides? Far from it. 

Two sides are standard – often what are included at a barbecue place. Anything else, though more money, is certainly encouraged by the gluttons-that-be. You can’t experience dining as it’s meant to be by sticking with two. The options are endless. You can mix and match, ordering entrees and sides and vice versa. There is nothing to stop a person from ordering an omelet with a side of French toast, Mac and cheese, and sweet potato fries. The clinking of cheap china on your table is music to the ears of many a late night patron. Here, where people routinely order OJ, coffee, and something a little stronger, the word both is utterly meaningless. 

There are more than two sides. Go out to eat if you don’t believe me. 

The Future of Hybrids

It’s pretty standard to speak about hybrid cars without offering up much in the way of a counterargument. Basically, we are meant to appreciate their everyday presence and nothing more. But I worry about the future more than I used to. I guess things are okay for now, as people start the tough process of getting off foreign oil; weening, siphoning and guzzling at their leisure. Like any addiction, there are good days and bad ones. Times you succumb to temptation and idle for hours in front of a sputtering hydrant. What happens down the road, when the landscape is mostly full of these pesky, kind of useful hybrids? 

I fear for those days more than anything. Few people want to discuss how cars are made. It is our nation’s dirty little secret. We can thank Henry Ford for gifting us the assembly line. Car manufacturing is simple. Think of it. Cars, like people, depreciate over time, but they aren’t useless at the end. Some are able to run for millions of miles, while others have trouble pulling out of the dealership. A new car is made after two old cars fall in love. If not love, something akin to fleeting affection. Cars make cars. But hybrids offer a dilemma. Imagine if the Belmont Stakes was run exclusively by mules. Mules, while good at carrying heavy things and having a fine disposition despite their existential malaise, cannot procreate. 

The same is true of hybrid cars. They are the result of the forbidden love between a gas car and an electric one. Do we really want bicycles on the interstate? Because that’s what will happen in fifty years when every old car has made the trek to Florida for rusty retirement.  

Asterisk Averse

Whether to acknowledge the degree to which performance-enhancing drugs destroyed baseball’s hallowed records, or to alert the public of a lengthy legal disclaimer, or lastly to mark a phrase as wildly ungrammatical, there’s little little Asterix can’t do. While an asterisk might seem like the obvious punctuation notation favored by clever omitters of the relevant, it is actually a cartoonish figure representing the glory days of Gaul.

The asterisk is not enough to tell a story. It is an ineffectual way for someone to make a correction, or, better yet, to appear to have made a correction. If I say, meet me at Motel 6*. You might, for the first time in your life, consider motels with a different numerical preference. You may start wondering what Tom Bodett is doing at this very moment, should he not be recording a radio or TV commercial. You might even imagine meeting me somewhere else. But I’m not helping you understand anything. The asterisk adds the illusion of clarity. When it is closer to a haphazard footnote, there to be seen. 

 

Not so for Asterix. First of all, he’s French. But not French in the way we know things now, with the baguettes and the berets. The obsession with butter and philosophy. He’s old world French, of the old école, when concerns focused on the movements of Rome and the likes of Julius Caesar. 

 

Take the baseball home run record. Barry Bonds has the top spot at 762, with Henry Aaron a close second at 755. What good would an asterisk do, hovering above the two in miniature superscript? Nothing, as far as I can see. However, you put this blonde barbarian with his winged helmet, holding a sharpened shortsword, the point is made. The blade is enough to lop off 

 

What has an asterisk been through? The transition from the click clack of a typewriter to the blinking cursor of a personal computer? That’s hardly comparable to the drawn out Gallic Wars, where Roman legions gave no quarter. It would give baseball more of an international feel, something the game needs. 

Panel Discussion

If one person is pretty good discussing an important topic, what about two people, both of whom are "experts"? Wait, I have an idea. Let’s try 5 – that’s a good number, a strong number. While we’re at it changing stuff, a moderator belongs in there, too. Someone to hold things together, keeping the participants from straying too far off topic. Personal anecdotes, long-winded digressions, and amusing asides are ways people try and win back the audience after a gaffe. The discussion is streaming on-line, recorded for posterity, and an artifact for future generations to marvel at and question why it took place in the first place. People actually paid money to hear this? 

Apparently. With that, the panel discussion begins. 

 

“Wood paneling remains the gold standard. Okay, the wood standard of faux-wall interior décor.” 

 

“Have you seen what they’re doing with brick paneling these days? It suspends all disbelief.” 

"This is nearish Brooklynish. The conversation begins and end with brownstone paneling."

 

“Don’t sleep on foam paneling. I too ignored it for years.”

 

“Technically, of the three types of paneling discussed here today, foam paneling is the one type of paneling a person could comfortably and easily get some shuteye on. Just saying.”

 

“You’re missing my point. After opening a home recording studio, foam is the way to go. Now I just need some great beats to match my ribald rap rhymes.” 

 

“Very good. Any questions from the audience?”

 

“You barely touched on the benefits of wood paneling. Why is it better than the others?”

 

“I like that cozy, cabin feel it has.”

 

“It used to have. These days, wood paneling is more associated with a podcast studio than a podunk ski lodge. And that’s a real shame.”

 

“Have you ever considered not paneling a room? As in, would you simply paint it over?”

 

“You want to paint? Then paint. But this is a panel discussion and it will remain one as long as the lights are on.”

 

“I find it odd that you’re seated in front of a massive curtain and projection screen. How are we supposed to take your assessments seriously when you can’t even be bothered enough to install a few makeshift panels as a three-dimensional visual aid. I should be able to know what you're talking about with earplugs in.”

 

“You want to know the truth? We couldn’t agree. There are the wood partisans, as always. But more often than not, someone wants to add a new type of weird material like PVC or stone. A thick curtain turned out to be the consensus.”

 

“Are you going to address how ugly wood paneling is? Seems pretty obvious.”

“Not to us.”

 

“What are the curtains made of?”

 

“That’s something you can find out during tomorrow’s flannel discussion.”

Interview: Little Green Environmentalist

Environmentalism is just another -ism for a person to try on in between personas. A nice way of seeing which one fits best. But for beings coming here from distant worlds, they don’t have the time to waste. While we might think globally, we rarely think universally. And joyriding to the Red Planet doesn’t count. I’ve heard lots of discussion around the rising tides in Venice or forest fires on the West Coast, but very little about the rest of the galaxy’s concerns. We stick to what we know. The dew point in Delaware. The humidity in Hawaii. The snow drifts in South Dakota. From my experience, aliens usually possess a much more holistic view of things than your average member of Greenpeace. In my travels, I’ve certainly met aliens who enjoy nothing more than revving their pickup trucks in the parking lot of a Mickey D’s, chain smoking Marlboro Reds and packing the trunk with burgers and fries. But those types of extra-terrestrials are the exception. Here’s a Little Green Man who knows what it means to go green. 

MTP: Thanks for doing this. You’re a hard alien to reach. 

 

LGM: Don’t I know it. This is my busy season. 

 

MTP: How’s that?

 

LGM: The Super Bowl brings in a lot of wagers from all over the universe. Most aliens are Raiders fans, something about the uniforms and Al Davis being one of us, but the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl. Ya know? 

 

MTP: Right. You’re not that little, nor are you green. 

 

LGM: People always say that. But it’s a moniker, like a rap name. It’s my brand and I can’t shake it. 

 

MTP: So tell me, what are you doing for the environment these days?  

 

LGM: That’s good question. Not much. I’m kind of retired from that type of activism. I could’ve gotten to earth in the early 1600s, but I took this rickety sailboat contraption that tacked centuries onto the journey. I had friends back home who thought I was crazy not using nuclear. I didn’t want to do that. It felt like cheating. So the way I see it, that’s contributed more than most people.

 

MTP: It helps to have your life span, I suppose. 

 

LGM: That’s true. 

 

MTP: But is there anything you do in your daily life that we should adopt? 

 

LGM: Living in Vegas it’s not easy, I’ll tell ya that. When I arrived I considered not having an A/C. That experiment lasted a few hours and I’ve been blasting it ever since. 

 

MTP: Do you recycle?

 

LGM: Only bad ideas. 

 

MTP: What about space junk? I remember reading a paper you co-authored with Neil Degrasse Tyson for National Geographic entitled, “Junk with Power.” Do you remember that? 

 

LGM: Of course, Neil’s a friend. But I’ve changed my tune on that and pretty much everything else. 

 

MTP: I guess I have only myself to blame for the poor research.

 

LGM: Why not blame your assistant?

 

MTP: I don’t have an assistant.

 

LGM: But you could.

 

MTP: Maybe I do have an assistant. Might to have to fire them now.

 

LGM: Look, regarding the whole junk dilemma, space is a vacuum, okay? So who am I to demand someone clean things up? Seems like the system has it under control without my meddling. Unless we’re talking Dyson or Oreck, I just don’t see how anyone has a leg to stand on here. 

 

MTP: You like living in Vegas?

 

LGM: It’s all right. But it was much better to do what I do for a living before the proliferation of legalized gambling. 

 

MTP: How’d you get into this? 

 

LGM: A friend of mine got arrested and I had to take over the operation for a weekend. He ended up doing twenty five to life and here I am, still running it today. Funny how life is though, huh? You’re sent here to do one job and you find an entirely different calling. I don’t question it and I never will.  

 

MTP: Does going green still matter to you?

 

LGM: You bet it does. Though to be fair, when you say green, I think of the stacks of hundred dollar bills I keep under my bed at Caesar’s Palace. Living in a hotel is good for the environment. I’m not asking anyone to build me a new residence or whatever.

MTP: Quite the logic there. Any last thoughts before I let you go? 

 

LGM: Take the Bengals and the points.