My Inner Child

Too many people have the tendency to infantilize their inner child, plying them with childish things – toys, candy, and coloring books. I don’t do that. My inner child is precocious and wise beyond his years. So I provide him with cartons of unfiltered cigarettes, crates of grain alcohol, and fireworks smuggled in from Pennsylvania. I don’t treat my inner child like a child. That’s my first and only rule.

He understands macroeconomics, microeconomics and enjoys expensive sushi on a semi-weekly basis. The folks always saying that mercury is in retrograde never seem to approve of consuming copious amounts of raw tuna. I wonder why. It’s as if they haven’t thought through their mindless little aphorisms. Well, I have.

I let him drive, letting the local authorities worry about his license and registration. My inner child is a far better driver than most adults on the road. Which, admittedly, isn't a particularly high bar. We have long talks about Kris Kringle and the realities of his arctic living situation amid our increasingly untenable climate situation.

I leave my inner child home alone for days on end, believing he’ll figure out how to cook an egg or order takeout. I trust him not to burn the place down. But if he does, he knows where the fire extinguisher is. I don’t patronize him by using monosyllabic words, but assume he understands long-winded diatribes on current events. I don’t assume he thinks that geo-politics is tangentially related to the Geo Tracker.

My inner child is no stranger to nostalgia, despite his age, which remains indeterminate. I don’t look down on him because of his lack of higher education. A degree doesn’t define a person, I know that. He knows that. You should know that.  

 

My inner child is getting up there, a little long in the tooth. Pretty soon, my inner child will be my inner adult, growing up like anyone else. But no matter what, he’ll always be my inner child to me. 

Fetching Commute

No one wants to go back to the office as much as dogs. They are the one group sick and tired of their masters always being around. Many people used their dogs as a preemptive remedy against pandemic induced insanity. There were reports of some antsy dog owners walking their pets fifty, sometimes sixty times a day. Anything to get out of the house. But a dog is not an anti-psychotic. While people drag their heels, diving beneath the sheets in a cameraless, rudderless profession, their own dogs are looking for jobs. 

Every office needs a dog. For one thing, it gives the dog something to do. Back when this country actually made things, there was a dog in every factory, a dog on every farm. We put them to work, because, like humans, most dogs are lost without purpose. Cats have pretty names that conjure up images of palaces, while a dog is the more utilitarian beast. Retrievers want to retrieve – papers, tax forms, receipts. Shepherds want to shepherd – interns, clients, fire marshals during the annual emergency exit check. Shih Tzus want to...you get the idea.

I don’t understand how people can’t see this. Your dog does not want to be around you all the time. They need to do something with their lives, away from your home and out in the real world. 

So throw ‘em a bone, would ya? 

Slapsticking Points

On the Vaudeville circuit, as much as the often inebriated, often uneducated masses lapped up well-crafted quips, what they craved more than oxygen itself was physical comedy. They wanted to laugh at the misfortune of others. Beaning, whacking, thwacking, tripping, and yes, slapping. For men like the Three Stooges, witticisms were fine as punchlines, but better punchlines always involve the use of one’s fist. Real punchlines are the lines in someone’s face after telling them how you really feel. But this was when those on stage were the aggressors. Much like a punch, not every joke lands perfectly. 

However, pugilistic comedy didn’t start in 20^th century dives. You can go all the way back to Ancient Rome for performances closer to the beginning. That’s all a gladiator fight was, a form of entertainment that got a little out of hand. It turns out the audience enjoyed the orgy of violence more than the clever wordplay in between bouts. If you think puns are funny, then you’ve never seen a disgraced Roman soldier getting stomped on by an unruly elephant at the Circus Maximus. 

As we became a more literate culture, relying on our smarts to entertain, the skill of making people laugh. Is slapping someone across the face all that different from slapping your knees in a fit of unbridled guffawing? George Kennan was wrong – containment doesn’t always work. You need to let your emotions, especially when going for a joke. Plus, if I recently discovered that words are violence, which if my transitive property loving high school math teacher was correct, then acts of violence are mere words. Funny how that works out.

There are a few ways to react to a celebrity sighting. You could ignore them like any streetwise lunatic. You could approach for an autograph, hoping to flip in a quick cash grab. Or you could walk up to them hoping for a more intimate meeting. There are plenty of ways to provoke someone. But it’s more likely the case one of their handler will step in to give you a smack, which is like getting them to also sign your Playbill. In other words, it’s worthless. Should you get a cheeky response from a wild-eyed luminary, then you’ve accomplished something significant. 

 

Now that’s what I call being starstruck.

Pigeon Proposition

Many fed up New Yorkers, when confronted by a soiled windshield, refer to pesky pigeons as nothing more than rats with wings. It’s an odd insult, since adding “with wings” to pretty much anything on earth immediately makes it better. Whether it’s your dog or your friend Dave, adding feathered, perfectly aerodynamic appendages to the equation puts each into the literal and figurative stratosphere. 

 

Yet there are those confused Americans who’d have you believe that one wing is better than the other. That the left wing is all you need to fly. Or maybe the right wing is sure to put you on a better course. When we all know the truth: at best, a single wing will send you in circles, and at worst, into the ground below for an unceremonious crash landing. 

 

Pigeons need two wings. The tension between the two is part of what makes them able to cruise around a bustling city of rats without wings. Equilibrium should be what we’re after. Instead, there are those activist types trying to bioengineer single-wing birds to do their bidding. I don’t understand it. Have you ever seen a plane with one wing? They even have two pilots, just in case one leans a little too much to one side. 

 

I’m not a peacock partisan who’s in favor of adding ostentatious feathers willy-nilly for attracting mates and psychedelic meanderers alike. But find me a good bird and I’ll find you two good wings. That’s a fact. The one exception would be buffaloes. But it usually helps to get some air. And mammals are no different. 

Judgment Day

I know it might not sound like much, but I just found something truly wonderful resting on my doorstep. You probably can’t resist the urge to guess what it is. Most people have a similar sickness, the inability to go into anything fresh. Movies, Mallomars, whatever. But it was not a box of rambunctious kittens, praying for leche. Nor was it a latter-day Moses, one of those fresh doormat basket babies, waiting for someone to school them in the ways of sea-parting and hair-parting. Sand storms ain’t good for combovers, and many an old world acolyte can tell you that. It was not a giant check with lots of zeroes and tricky ol’ cursive. It was a letter from God. Yes, that God. Not J. God Johnson working the graveyard shift at an all-night Dunkin’ on Northern Boulevard. This isn't the other guy, this is the big guy. 

Yet his cursive is not nearly as good as the nice folks at Publishers Clearing House. But he tries.  Any who, he’s invited me to help judge the AICP (The Apocalypse of Independent Commercial Prophets). And oh boy, I am so humbled by the unusual, though not totally unexpected request. You see, he’s made overtures before, saying things like, “when the time comes, I hope you own a gavel.” I actually do own a gavel. It was my grandfather’s. The opportunity to sitteth at his right hand, wow, just wow. I'm almost speechless. The only issue I see going forward is after the end of the world, there aren’t going to be as many job openings with everyone going one of two directions. I’ll figure it out. Lemons, lemonade, you get the idea.

 

As surprising as it sounds, even omnipotent beings need help sometimes. Why do you think Kringle employs elves? Even if one can do everything alone, why would they? It’s more fun to share an experience with good friends. 

 

Don’t forget to send in your entries ASAP. If you have a particularly hard case, it’s important I see it now, ya know, before it stars raining hellfire. Emails are better, given the flammability of paper. The easy thing for me is that there isn’t any middle ground award-wise. Good, evil, next, and that's about it. So I won’t be parsing commandments and handing out complex sentences. This is simple, binary stuff here. Very basic. 

 

My official title is Queens County regional judge, casting aspersions on humanity as people wait for the final judgment. One last thing before I go to this seemingly eternal orientation session. I don’t want to give away the deadline since it should be a surprise. I think it’s better than way. You won’t miss it. It’ll be a real revelation. 

Trust me.

Interview: This Is All Very Meta

I grew tired of interviews long ago. They are not always as they appear in print. Often edited, routinely condensed to a milk-like powder, and sometimes rewritten completely to convey an entirely different impression of the nutso interviewee. If someone appears intelligent, it’s only because clever editors have made it seem that way. As a jaded misanthrope, I came to the realization that there was only one person I could interview and only one subject I could interview them on. That would be interviewing me on the subject of interviewing.

 

MTP: Good morning. Is it morning where you are?

MTP: Indeed it is. Cloudy, but the sun is no doubt somewhere close by

MTP: It’s not the sunless day the druids feared, is it? 

MTP: Is it a “day” without the sun? 

 

MTP: Ask an Alaskan.

 

MTP: What are we doing this for again?

MTP: I wanted to interview you about interviews.

MTP: Interviews?

MTP: Interviews.

MTP: I’m not an expert.

MTP: Neither am I.

MTP: Interviews today are mere shadow of what they once were.

MTP: Care to elaborate?

MTP: Burr v. Hamilton, Weehawken, New Jersey, standing room only. Now that was an interview.

MTP: Duels were interviews? 

MTP: Duels are interviews, interviews are duels. What about this don’t you understand?

 

MTP: I guess I never thought of an interview in those terms

MTP: In what terms?

MTP: Combative ones. Like it’s a contest. It’s not Borg and McEnroe, but two dopes on the beach playing that pointless paddle ball game, desperately trying to keep it off the sand.

MTP: Then you’re dumber than I thought.

MTP: That doesn’t reflect that well on you, now does it? 

MTP: You’re a softball pitcher, hurling in meaty eephus after meaty eephus. This is hardball, pal. Wake up.

MTP: I'm not your pal. 

MTP: Look, you invited me on. I’m your guest, so start acting like it.

MTP: You’re not my guest, you’re me. 

MTP: Distinction without a difference.

MTP: I knew this was a bad idea. 

MTP: What are you so afraid of? That people are going to think you’re nuts. Newsflash: they already think that. 

MTP: How would you know? You deactivated your Facebook account years ago.

MTP: I have my ways. 

MTP: Let’s wrap this up. 

MTP: Finally, something we can agree on.

MTP: Why a blog? 

MTP: You know the answers already. Kinda defeats the purpose, no? 

MTP: But the audience doesn't.

MTP: What audience? 

MTP: Thanks for your time. Where can people find you?

MTP: Take a wild guess. 

MTP: I don't even know who you are anymore. 

Wind or Lose

You arrive at a restaurant and despite having a reservation they seat you right by the door. It’s a cold night and there’s a draft. With every new diner, you and your eating partner get a fresh, frosty gust. The hot food on your table is practically seared with icicles. Instead of catching up on sports or gossip swirling around the federal indictments of former classmates, you complain about the wind. You curse it with each forceful gale. 

This sort of thing happens all the time, and not always inside a climate uncontrolled environment like a busy trattoria. From the safety of a basement dwelling or behind a reinforced steel wall, they’ll decry tornados, hurricanes, and zephyrs. I suppose I understand it. These natural elements can be quite inconvenient or scary. However, a cyclone is only a few notches between a cool breeze. 

All this hot air around wind obscures the point – we need air to live. We’re not fish, okay? And since when can you have too much of a good thing? You want air, then you don’t get to be picky about what form it arrives it. The same goes for dehydrated individuals decrying sudden deluges. Isn’t this what you wanted? You can’t have it both ways. 

Say what you will about a certain type of natural disaster, but to me, it’s mostly a breath of fresh air. 

Kanye Pest

The prevailing thought among mocktail-swilling futurists is that as technology progresses, devices will become smaller and smaller. It doesn’t take that much schooling to make predictions like this. Back in the fifties, computers took up entire rooms and they still lacked the power of the worst iPhone. But more than modern tech changes over time. We change, too.

Maybe not us exactly. Famous people. Actors. Musicians. Television hosts. And it’s not simply a matter of Botox injections finally going awry. There’s that, but there’s more than that, too. Celebrities who reach their peak at a young age get exponentially more annoying over time. They go from household name to household nuisance in a matter of years. Part of the issue is that we know too much.

Irritability sells. It always has. Yes, shark attacks and grizzly bear mailings get the biggest headlines, but it was mosquitos, after all, who pushed the masterminds behind the Panama Canal to the brink of sanity. Today, few even talk about what a toll it took, the double bill of yellow fever and malaria. It’s like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones sharing a stage. Most failed to realize they were witnessing history, too busy slapping their forearms and itching in vain. After all that hard work and turmoil, how many people can spell isthmus, let alone know what one is? And don’t get me started on pronunciation. 

In 2022, relevance is synonymous with annoyance. Keep bothering people day in and day out and you’ll never be too far from the public’s eye. We tend to forget about major predators. But pests? They will be with us for a long, long time. When it comes to celebs going the pest route, we’re just scratching the surface.

Kim Kardashian’s Rules for Business

Getting into business school is a complicated combination of test scores and character recommendations. This is none of that. These are rules, which when adopted, guarantee success. The MBA is at a crisis point. Thankfully, there are new alternatives to the staid world of handshakes and sport coats. I’m sure people looked askance at The Buddha when he first delivered his four noble truths. It’s amazing he stopped at four. I don’t know much about enlightenment, but I could’ve gone on and on. The end happened to coincide with the end of my intermittent fasting.

Start with money. Making something is easier when you don’t have nothing. Did you know that a billion is more than a million? 

Marry a celebrity. If that doesn’t work, date a celebrity. If that doesn’t work, pretend to date or marry a celebrity. Of course, this only works if you’re a celebrity, too. 

Privacy is a myth. Whatever you do in private is better done in public. That includes raising your children, dealing with 

Be tangentially connected to the “crime of the century.” There’s a lot of time left in the 21^st century for this to happen. Operative word: tangential. You shouldn’t be driving the getaway car or destroying evidence. Let a relative do that. 

Be relatable. This is usually accomplished with using standard camera angles in personal photos.

Make it, self. The American Dream is not being a self-made, it’s pretending you’re self-made. Anyone can do that.

Star in a movie. No matter how low budget it is. Exposure is exposure regardless of the aperture. 

You don’t have to be able to spell entrepreneur to be one. That second “r” always gets me too. 

Be your own brand. Coke, Pepsi, anything that’s just waiting explode.

Connect with people. Or, better yet, like spoiled milk, go right through them.

Lastly, remember it’s business, not personality. 

 

You're Cooked

Language matters, however you choose to slice it. Oops. I shouldn’t have said that. You see, despite a long love of sandwiches, I have never worked at a deli and really shouldn’t appropriate phrases like that into my normal speech.

I hear people all the time saying things like “now we’re cookin” or “bring home the bacon.” These are phrases tied up in certain historical experiences i.e. being a professional chef. Threatening someone by saying "you're toast" is best left to people who understand the subtle differences between marble rye and pumpernickel. Calling something "half-baked" without having a personal relationship with Paul Hollywood is a sin of the highest order. 

Stick to metaphors that are in line with your chosen profession. It’s okay to say, “I’m feeling pretty backed up,” if you’re either a long haul trucker or a plumber. 

Sure smells like a recipe for disaster. 

Kremlins

 

What is a “kremlin?” For starters, it’s lot like a gremlin, only with a k instead of a g. I read somewhere in english that in cyrillic gs are actually ks. Over there, they pray to Kod, laugh at the Khostbusters and sloppily eat a kyro on the street from the poorly wrapped tinfoil barely containing a messy street sandwich. Nevertheless, kremlins are annoying little pests you might find in your bathroom pipes or on cable TV – anywhere excrement flows with extreme velocity. Once a spout gets a-gushing, it can be a chore to plug the dam. No plumber wants any part of these serial prevaricators, deforming the whole world nightly.  

Some of the creatures may have even altered their appearance over the years, maximizing their impact. There’s one kremlin in particular who did just that, long ago trashing his decent reputation in the magazine world for bigger glories on the small screen. shedding his bow tie, replacing it with a terrible personality. Pucker, sucker, something like that. I’ll stop rhyming before it gets me in trouble. If memory serves, it was a quasi-dog’s name of sorts, whose nominal significance was once summed up in the pithy poetry of Morningside Heights’ most famous son. 

There are other kremlins. Blabbing, gabbing, and yapping away. Elected officials, elected unofficials, and unelected unofficials. Whoever they are, I can’t always make out what they’re saying. Which makes sense, I haven’t spoken imbecyrillic on a regular basis since college.

The Temptation of Tom Brady

“Tom Brady's retirement lasted 40 days. Brady said Sunday he is returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for his 23rd season in the NFL. - ESPN

Tom Brady, full of omega-3 fatty acids and multivitamins, returned from Tampa Bay and was led by his family into retirement, where for forty days he was tempted to stay there by Bill Belichick. He ate nothing at all during those days, except for his typically weird diet, holistic, herbal, pseudo-scientific, at times even healthy, and when they were done talking, all he wanted was a damn burger. Bill Belichick said to him, “If you are the GOAT, command this football to become a loaf of bread. What are you afraid of, a few GMOs?” Tom Brady answered him, “It is tweeted, ‘One does not live by bread alone, except for maybe Jared Fogel, and look where it got him.’”

Then Bill Belichick took him to a locked screening room and showed him in an instant all the mediocre television shows featuring ex-athletes over the years, paying especially close attention to The Masked Singer, gently whispering into his ear, “Gronk did it.” The thought of Tom Brady sweating profusely while stuck inside an oversized, poorly ventilated costume, far from any stadium, aroused Bill Belichick to the point he nearly lost his train of thought. And just then Bill Belichick said to him, “For you, I will talk to one of the producers and put in the good word. Shaq’s mistake was not acting, it was acting when he was still a player. OJ learned that lesson the hard way. Say what you will about him, he was great in Naked Gun. Nordberg, the name alone conjures up warm memories of a simpler time. For it has been given over to me that content is the way of the future, and I give it to anyone I please. If you just promise to stay out of the league forever and ever, it will all be yours, granted you pass the audition.”

Tom Brady answered him, “It is memed, ‘Worship my agent, and serve only him.’”

Then Bill Belichick took him to a Florida retirement community not far from the team’s practice facility, and placed Tom Brady on the pinnacle of a bocce court, saying to him, “If you are the GOAT, make a good shot without spiraling it unnecessarily. Remember, this isn't football, but the fact that you used to throw for a living ought to be an asset. For it is Instagrammed, ‘He will command his family, you married a supermodel, Tom, to outearn you,’ and, ‘On their hands and knees they will prop you up, so that you will not tear your ACL again.’”

 

Tom Brady answered him, “it is said, ‘Do not put the GOAT to the test. Or is it, do put the GOAT to the test? My memory is starting to go.’”

 

When Bill Belichick had finished every test, he departed, kicking himself, which is not easy at his age, knowing he failed to make his case and that Tom Brady is probably now, purely out of spite, going to play until he’s eighty. Maybe Bill Belichick is the one who should retire.

Casting a Broad Net

 

It’s good to see professional broadcasters finally getting their due, in the form of handsome salaries. They are the reason we tune in. In the old days, few bothered to learn the mechanics of a combination punch or the complexities of the sweet science. Seeing the great Ali was one thing, while hearing Howard Cosell excoriate someone on live television was why people watched. They wanted to see his Jesse Jacksonian flare for rhyming compound adjectives. 

The games, despite universal betting, did not and do not matter. The plays on the field are commonplace, ordinary, and nondescript. It takes someone with a lot of money to describe them properly. The novelty of Tony Romo predicting the plays before they happen? Suddenly, it's more interesting, even if what happens is anything but. And it's worth every cent. 

For a long time, the news has been secondary to the person reporting the news. Despite what long-haired dolts from the Woodstock generation claim, Vietnam was not big news - not then, not now. But Walter Cronkite was big, big news. He made people care in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise. So it’s nice to see these wizards of the teleprompter getting what they deserve. They are being rewarded for their rare talents and uncommon gravitas. Reading is hard enough without a tough audience of producers and camera operators unmoved by moving commentary. Where else besides a doctor’s office is someone expected to recite from a great distance? Sports announcers don’t have that luxury. They mostly go to the well and pull out idioms from the bottom of the barrel, tossing them onto the playing surface like a octopus in Detroit. Somehow, some way, they always stick.  

Sports without announcers are confusing spectacles akin to the pointless, unpaid misadventures of children playing for the “love of the game.” We're adults and we deserve more. Not as much as the announcers - they deserve a lot more. 

Yes, and what else?

Under the tepid sprinkling of applause (it's not always "a smattering") and the shaky lights of a middling night club, improv comedians truly shine. Or do they glare? They certainly reflect whatever the audience has in their watered-down snifters. In our society, improv is placed on a relatively high plane, seeing as they make it up right on the spot. It’s odd, considering that scripts are much more difficult to complete than going off the cuff.

What makes an improv comic different from you, me or the guy cutting our sandwiches? Improv is a part of everyday life. It’s why car dealers are slimy. There’s this sense they are reading from a pre-determined script, a sleazy spiel designed to break you. I say whatever pops into my head and so does everyone else. Does the fact that several lucky souls get to do it in front of a crowd for paying customers change the equation? Not to me it doesn’t.

There’s no one I know who goes out in public with cue cards and someone talking into their earpiece. We all get by, mostly. Improv artistes aren’t unique or special, they are in the grand tradition of winging it. Who hasn’t done what they do at work or at home? It’s time to demystify their skill and point out that it’s tantamount to human nature.

But people fall over themselves praising the witty banter on stage. The dirty secret of improv is that the funniest parts are often scripted, or at least, thought of beforehand from a joke matrix. The number of truly original things ever said on one of their stages you could count on a single five-fingered hand. Same with prop comics, who suffer derision from their peers. Who doesn’t use props on a regular basis? Nudists. And even for them, it’s questionable to what extent that's really true. 

I’m not saying that improv isn’t hard. It just isn’t any harder than participating in the world as a human being. This has me thinking that scripts might be helpful. It has worked wonders for politicians. Are average citizens next? 

Mobile Phones

Considering how many people live in fear of going without their phone, it’s hard to imagine a world before the pesky little devices. Who’s to say Napoleon wouldn’t have stayed in his tent endlessly scrolling during the wild hundred days. He might have never made it to Waterloo for a final face-off with Wellington and the others, choosing to play Candy Crush instead. 

In Colonial New York, you couldn’t grab your phone and start talking into it, a trusty ruse to get crazy people off the scent and onto another target. Back then, you had to deal with the nuts straight on. It made for a more direct society, one where a citizen’s ability to check out with headphones and a nose buried into a screen were impossible. The smallest broadsides were quite enormous by today’s standards. 

And this is the main reason to have a phone. It is not to contact your loved ones or use in an emergency. It is to fend off the burgeoning class of wackos, yahoos, and yo-yos parading the streets in increasingly large numbers. Too bad most of them also have phones. Thus they see through the little games we play. Something else is needed to buy us more time, something even more distracting. What could that be? 

When I’m in Philadelphia, I always make it a point to climb up the 36 foot statue of William Penn, resting atop City Hall, gazing off at the bustling metropolis, quantifying where the city falls demonstrably short. It’s not exactly legal, nor safe, but always extremely gratifying. William Penn, that wild Quaker man and father of the American street grid, detester of Euro-trash roundabouts, is often overlooked. But the statute, carved by Alexander Milne Calder is worth checking out if you can sneak past a phalanx of security and aren’t one bit afraid of heights. While it’s still high above the street, it’s striking enough to catch the attention of passing drivers and pedestrians. 

As you might have guessed, my problems with modern phones are quite extensive. I possess a network of critiques and petty hatreds regarding Bell’s invention. 

It’s time mobile phones became mobile phones. Calder’s grandson, also named Alexander, specialized in this. Think of all the lunatics who’d be frozen in place at the sight of a complicated mobile phone, buzzing, twirling, and dangling, all at the same time. While fitting a device like this in your pocket isn’t easy, or in the overhead compartment on a plane, no one, and I mean no one, will bother you if they see you talking into a 30 foot mobile. Except for maybe an art student. Which is not always better than catching a maniac's glare.

Oligarch Your Eyebrows

As far as I can tell, it’s not an especially good time to be an oligarch. This is a rather new and startling development. I guess it just shows that if life can be hard for an oligarch, who among us stands a chance? They are the ones who had it made (or stolen).

My concern is that we redefine what it means to be an oligarch, in the same way we have lowered the standards within many sports halls of fame. To gain induction once upon a time, you had to be on par with Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio – immortals. People who no reasonable person could argue against. Then you get the likes of Harold Baines and Bill Mazeroski, who shouldn't be in the same zip code, let alone the same building.  

The same thing is happening to oligarchs. In the old decaying days after the fall of the Soviet Union, to be an oligarch, meant to rule over a fiefdom. It meant owning hundreds of Brioni suits and dozens of yachts. It meant vacationing in the Black Sea, as well as the Adriatic. It meant eating caviar for three meals a day, bathing in vodka and champagne. Now, simply bathing puts in a suspect caste. The implication is that your leisure time extends well beyond the seconds usually allotted for a shower.

If there’s even a sniff of beluga on your person, you’ll get the oligarch stench – one that’s impossibly hard to rub off. What’s a yacht anyway? I grew up believing that in order for a boat to be considered a yacht, when measuring it you had to factor in the curvature of the earth. Apparently, these days any dinghy with a motor gets the elevated to yacht status. 

I’ve had caviar. I’ve been on a boat. What am I, Ollie Garch?  

Betting on Pro Football’s Future

With news that Calvin Ridley joined millions of other pigskin partisans by gambling on the game, I began to wonder: what else is coming down the roulette wheel for America’s ascendant sport?  Here’s what I’d bet on…

The season will likely expand to 52 weeks, so there’s never a time we’re more than six days between games.

With a longer season, you need more teams. I’d put the number somewhere north of 40 but south of 400. Then again, I’m not a data guy.

With more teams, you’re going to need more players. Rosters will increase to a few hundred, with about 50 watermen (née waterboys) alone.

With more players, you’re going to need a bigger field. I’d say 500 yards is a good place to start.

But a bigger field means a bigger stadium. One million seats feels right and sounds righter. 

Bigger stadiums will mean bigger concessions. Footlong hotdogs are going to become yardlong. Considering the game is based around yards, it’s stunning this hasn’t happened sooner.  

With bigger tubed meat, you’re going to need more points. Let’s just make touchdowns 60 points instead of 6. It’s an easy way to increase offense without changing the game one bit.  

 

And with more brain damage from more of everything, the product will decay into a shriveled facsimile of a once proud pastime. 

Russian to Judgement

 

Some people donate anonymously to upstanding charities as a way to make an impact. Others provide moral support in the form of artillery shells or canned goods. A few choose to pray, feeling it’s the only way to combat true evil. For most of us though, the lowly, unwashed, those options remain perilously out of reach. We are forced to pick sides in smaller ways, showing the world that vocal condemnation isn’t enough. 

I always knew there was something off with Russian dressing, though I couldn’t place it until now. When in doubt, I went with ranch. What’s more American than that anyway? A ranch on the open plain or a single-level home designed with movement in mind conjures up images of John Wayne and other forlorn cowboys, rustling steers and prodding cattle. In these trying times, a dry salad is better than one doused in Russian slop. I went through the same thing in the early days of the pandemic, when I had to unceremoniously dump vats of fish sauce I was hoarding in my downstairs neighbor's storage unit. 

It was hard to put my finger on why Nutcrackers, those grinning wooden figurines, resonated with me much more than Russian nesting dolls. But now I’ve come to realize why. For one thing, they’re German. And with nutcrackers, what you see is what you get. There is no deception, no ruse, nothing kept under wraps. While it’s unwise to use them for the wholesome cracking of nuts at the dinner table, they serve a legitimate mantle function, standing tall in the face of lesser tchotchke. Nesting dolls keep their agenda hidden, in an homage to the Trojan Horse, surely making Odysseus proud, wherever he may be. You think you’re getting one large babushka and instead your home is crawling with little dolls you didn’t ask for and don’t have room for. It becomes another thing to dust. I suppose Tchaikovsky’s out too, seeing as his Nutcracker suite is one of the earliest examples of cultural appropriation. 

I always had a feeling there was a good reason I never cracked into any Tolstoy. I thought it was because of an aversion to author’s legendary length. It's not I ever read the phonebook either. But it was more than that. I can read the entire output of Kakfa or Clancy in the time it takes to open War & Peace with a rusty crowbar. How many Karamazov brothers did we need? Two would’ve been plenty.  

I grant you that perhaps it’s not fair to blame these things for what’s going on in Russia. Maybe so. But I don’t know Putin. I’ve never met the man. He's not in my house. Whereas, I have things in my fridge that need tossing, books on my bookshelves that need burning, and decorations on my mantle that need trashing. 

This is my way of making a difference. Nyet. 

Fault Lines

 

What if I were to throw a banana cream pie in your face? A classic homage to the slapstickers of Silent film, who were as focused on pie as they were on punchlines. Back when slapstick meant actual slapping with sticky substances. The good old days. You might think since I’m the one with the motive, the opportunity, and the dessert, I’m somehow to blame. 

Well, you’d be wrong. Because no single action can be blamed on the single individual who committed it. Life doesn't conform to your limited worldview. 

It’s true, I gallivanted into a celebrity’s dressing room, foxtrotting past security, spilling crust with each new step, aimed and fired. I brought an extra canister of whipped cream in case what was on the pie didn’t cover your unusually large face. What makes me responsible for such behavior? Society, and the systems that prop it up, allowed me to go on unfettered. I could’ve been stopped at any time along the way. But no one dared to intervene.

There’s the baker, with his coterie of apron-clad kneaders, silently rolling dough before the sunrise. I didn’t make the pie that ended up in your face. I bought it, yes. But someone else would’ve done the same thing had I not asked for “extra cream,” and “don’t worry about how it tastes.”

The movies I alluded to earlier are partially to blame as well. These silver screen apologias glorified the pie pugilists of yesteryear, incapable of finishing a thought without sending a sugary delight flying at their conversation partner. While I didn’t create a society based around throwing pastry, we're all living in it.

I was merely the last domino to fall. But as any gamer knows, a domino can't fall alone. It takes a village to find fault.

Margarinized Groups

 

Margarine is the substitute teacher of the culinary world. What you go to when the oil is spent, the butter is old, and the lard has seen better days. But should that mean it doesn’t demand our respect? When substitute teachers enter the class, many students see this as an opportunity to act out. However, children today do not use their talents to build aerodynamically-sound paper airplanes or rubber band balls the size of small animals, or hurl loogies like patient rainforest sharpshooter. They stream the class live, hoping to catch the teacher. It could surround his choice of fedora, an unenviable stain, or the use of a phrase that’s painfully arcane. 

Kids should see subs as partners, allies as it were. They might even gain leverage over the full-time teacher by placating the newbie, a cagey negotiation tactic quite familiar in the business world. 

Margarine isn’t the only maligned sub out there. There’s the visor, for people whose hair doesn’t allow for a full-fledged baseball hat. The pocket watch for folks who like to keep their wrists unencumbered by excess metal. The barefoot buffoon who believes sandals are a half-measure between nature and the artificial enveloping of a rubberized sneaker. 

The fact is that tastes shift over time, falling prey to changing attitudes and unforeseen events. What was butter yesterday, might be margarine tomorrow. Is margarine better than butter? Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe this is the best case for humility since the discovery of male pattern baldness. 

Real Deals

What’s a real country? Since some countries seem awfully secure and then one day, they’re gone. The Ottoman Empire comes to mind, as does The Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Then there’s the Soviet Union. Nothing left to CCCP here. And one of what came before or after are real in any sense of the word. Frankly, the word real isn’t real, ruined by reality programming for all time.

These places are carved up pieces of land, arbitrarily divided and divvied. That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the views. Whether you cut your sandwich diagonally like a good Barcelonian, or perfectly in half like a simple plains stater, it’s possible both taste delicious. Although, some people don’t cut their food at all, choosing to consume in one heaping helping. For them, there is no hope. 

But not being real is no reason to criticize ,or God forbid, hurt someone. If that was the case, Los Angeles would be a place replete with insults and meanness. Instead, it’s a place of empty except empty compliments. A vacuous vacuum of banalities. Think of all the fake people waking around Hollywood lots, with their fake faces, fake eyebrows, fake busts, fake nails, fake resumes, and fake personalities. Faking it is a key part of success. 

Am I supposed to be outraged when I discover a friend’s house is not made from a rare tree but instead from synthetic material manufactured in Bayonne? I think not. 

What would be a real land? Some might say Pangaea, the old supercontinent. But look at how that turned out. Its break up wasn’t exactly seamless. What are earthquakes if not a strike against the status quo? Plus, how do we know dinosaurs didn’t have names for where they roamed? They didn’t call home, "Arizona."

What’s real anyway?