Little Plumber Boy

“No answer. Nobody’s available tonight,” said Joseph, frustrated by the lack of response. 

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just sleep outside in the manger. It’s not too cold out,” said Mary.

 

“I tend to agree, but when that water heater is living on borrowed time. When it bursts, it’s gonna go sky high.”

 

“I’m not worried about it. The baby’s fine, in case you were concerned,” she said.

 

“Oh yeah? Have you tried calling your boyfriend, maybe he has a solution,” said Joseph.

 

“I already told you, he’s not my boyfriend. But he works nights.”

 

“Of course, he does.”

 

There’s never a good time for your pipes to burst, toilets to clog, or gas to leak. But when it happens over the holidays, things can be even more trying and stressful on all parties involved. The birth of a first child can drum up extra anxieties in the parents. 

 

“Um, there are these three strange men here bearing gifts.”

 

“Like what,” asked Mary.

 

“Spices, I think,” said Joseph.

 

“I bet most of ours are expired, we could use a refresher.”

 

“I thought myrrh didn’t expire.”

“Everything expires.”

 

“Even water heaters,” said Joseph, snidely. 

 

The next few hours went off without a hitch. Gifts were exchanged, songs were sung, and the baby slept. At around 3 AM a little boy in overalls woke everyone up with a loud knock.

 

“Hi, someone called about a water heater,” said the boy.

 

“Yeah, I did, but that was hours ago. And you’re just a kid.”

 

“Look, I come from a long line of plumbers.”

 

“All right, follow me back to the house and I can show you what’s wrong.”

 

Joseph showed the boy a bucket of freezing cold water.

 

“You’re fire’s out. Did you know that? Do you have insurance?”

 

“I never considered it before,” said Joseph, getting more and more frustrated at the patronizing tone of this child on the day of his son’s birth.

 

“I tell you what I can do. I can come by in the morning, everyone’s asleep now, and we can install a brand new, top of the line heater. We’re talking what Caesar Augustus uses in the Roman baths. He swears by it. This is what Cleopatra used.” 

 

“Sounds expensive.”

 

“Consider it a gift. I saw those old guys handing out spices and I kinda got a kick out of it. Not too wise to give things for free, but whatever, they’re trying to cultivate long-term loyalty. Brad building, or something.  

 

“I guess that sounds okay. But you still seem awfully young to be a licensed plumber.” 

 

“You might say I started young. I was clogging my mother’s birth canal and helped ease my own delivery. From then on, I’ve been a member of Plumbers Local Number 700 out of Galilee. Some people choose careers, mine chose me.” 

 

“Something tells me my son is the same way.”

 

“You seem like a nice guy. I’ll give you a rare thirty-three-year warranty.”

 

“Why that long?”

 

“You’ll understand eventually. Merry Christmas.”

 

“What?”

Rhoticity chicken

 

 

At this restaurant, a glorified cafeteriar, we sprinkle in extra rhoticity wherever possible. To cater to a universal, multi-lingual crowd, our menu isn’t written in words, but rather, displayed through a series of carefully considered, extremely graphic, and occasionally offensive drawrings. 

You could start with our world famous, Chicken Marsalar, with a side of empanadars, some bruschettar, shawarmar, piccatar, traditional tikkar masalar. Still hungry? Order a fajitar with an egg beater, plus an enchiladar to-go. 

In the old days of non-rhoticity chicken, dinahs demanded extra honey mustahd along with buttah chicken and thighs ripped straight from the freezah. 

Just an idear. 

Feral Idiocy

When a city changes, there people to blame. Not me, even though I’m a person. But I float above the rest of the citizens, ensconced in stained carpet and lead paint from the unnatural boundaries of a mediocre walk-up. 

I first noticed it happening a few years ago. Change, that is. I’d walk down the street and someone, invariably named, “Joey,” sitting in an idling cab would be drumming on their steering wheel with cheap chop sticks. Not the durable kind you find in restaurant supply stores. But those pieces of shredded wood that risk adding a splinter to each piece of unagi. It could’ve been the solo from Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” or the opening snare from the theme to 2001. But here, Joey Boy would have his window down, annoying me beyond measure while polluting the pristine environment.

I’d turn a corner and suddenly there’d be a woman feeding pigeons from a park bench. Her name was always, “Susan.” These Susans didn’t understand the dietary restrictions of pigeons and instead of handing them loose seed or the last bits of a stale bagel, they’d hand out pieces of foie gras ignoring the cannibalistic overtones. 

I couldn’t even cross the street without someone, usually a “Doug,” bumping into me. When I moved to New York, I was renting the entire city. 

My boring critics accuse me of being a NIMBY. However, I am obsessed with everyone else’s backyard. This is much, much bigger than me. I don’t even have one. I can look out on a concrete slab to see if my downstairs neighbors understand how to water their plants. And I don’t have a God Complex. I have a God Simple. Since it’s simple that I am a walking, talking urban deity and among the city’s chosen few. It’s only authentic if I say it is. 

I have it on good authority that the day before I moved into my apartment the city was exclusively black and white. My arrival ushered in a moment living color not seen since the Wizard of Oz. My moving day is considered among the greatest moments in the history of the city, alongside the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and when Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Canarsees. Of course the worst three days in the city are, in no particular order, 9/11, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the closing of CBGBs. 

Capitalism has ruined this city. When I moved to the city in the early nineties it was a strictly barter economy. In fact, there were bodegas that still accepted wampum. 

Every New Yorker should have an ID card to show how New Yorkerish they are. That way, I, and I alone, can determine if they should be allowed to remain in city or banished to somewhere like Yonkers, which will put a damper on their tax forms. It’s amazing how everything bad in New York is caused by the people and forces I hate. Funny how that worked out. And my famous open-mindedness is narrowly focused on only what matters. 

When a plane crashes most people are concerned with the people on board. Not me. I’m worried about the plane.  

Click Me

It’s generally assumed that CTAs (calls to action) originated with the first dial-up modem. The thinking goes that the Internet required a more targeted, refined approach to motivating people from their passivity. When in fact, CTAs have existed for centuries. 

When schoolyard bullying was a pressure-tested, time-honored tradition, no one questioned the subtle taping of a sign to a student’s back. When someone wrote, “kick me,” it was anything but a rhetorical ask. Considering the popularity of the world Cup, it’s something most people should understand. But that was hardly unique in the early days of engaging your audience.  

The Ten Commandments are more calls to inaction given their focus on the word “not.” Except of course for Ozzy Osbourne’s favorite, “remember the sabbath.” I think they still sell t-shirts with concerts. But you are asking people to do something. 

We can’t ignore the word “call,” which implores people to pick up their landline and dial the number to buy something they don’t need. Want a pencil sharpener that works in zero gravity? Need a knife that can saw through prison bars? Thinking of teaching Urdu to your dog? These are only things that can happen by calling now. 

Too bad most calls are clicks. If we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that no one wants to learn more. We’ve seen enough.   

Echo Locution

 

Interviews with difficult subjects are generally fraught and combative. That’s especially the case when producers insist on doing the whole thing underwater, without the benefit of a studio or lights. If you don’t understand what someone says the first time, the last thing you do is ask them to repeat it while gargling. That’s kind of what it’s like working from the briny deep. But John Dolphin, a cult figure within important mammalian circles, was worth this waterlogged hardship. Will I have to replace my computer and suede jacket posthaste? Possibly. But I learned a lot from 

 

MTP: I read somewhere that you’re a New York Jets fan. 

 

JD: That’s true. 

 

MTP: Is there a reason you don’t support your home team? 

 

JD: This is the problem with you people. 

 

MTP: What do you mean by “you people.”

 

JD:  Exactly what it sounds like. People are always assuming every animal is blindly loyal to the franchise that pays them lip service. It’s never been the case. Lemme tell you a story. There’s this blue jay I know, Barry, nesting up in north Jersey for sometime now. He makes it a point every season to attend as many Yankees games as he can when the Toronto Blue Jays are in town. He makes it a point to boo, or in his case, coo against the away team. The notion that Toronto gets to claim every blue jay as their own is as offensive as it is stupid. I’ve never liked the Miami Dolphins. For one thing, many fans refer to them as “the fish.” I’m not a fish.

 

MTP: Interesting. I read that Hurricane Sandy never even know that Carolina Hurricanes. 

 

JD: Hurricanes are a mostly summer phenomena. They don’t watch hockey.  

 

MTP: Is it true that you aspire to be king? 

 

JD: I’m a dolphin, not a dauphin. Check your notes or fire your assistant.

 

MTP: With pleasure. How does it feel that you’re not a whale? 

 

JD: Great, honestly. 

 

MTP: Don’t you deserve your own Moby Dick, or at least, a Brendan Fraser movie of equal quality? 

 

JD: Don’t you?

MTP: I thought this was going to be a harder conversation.

 

JD: Because you figured I’d be squeaking a lot. 

 

MTP: You gotta admit, many of your friends have the vocabulary of a beach ball. 

 

JD: I went to Deerfield, not SeaWorld. 

MTP: I only have about thirty more questions.

JD: I'm gonna need some air. 

MTP: Me too. Maybe we can finish up over the phone.

JD: I don't think so. 

Interior Beauty

There’s been a great deal of ink spilled and pencils shaved on the subject of inner beauty. How what’s on the inside is what matters. I more or less agree with the sentiment in theory. But when it comes to architecture, most people want to have it both ways. They want you to appreciate the inner life of their slovenly relative passed out on the sectional couch while still admiring a skyscraper’s gaudy façade and nothing therein.

But if the inside really matters then shouldn’t we put more thought into the lobbies and foyers of our most famous buildings? People mindlessly admire spires, the least practical and accessible of any structure’s components. The lobby is the site of your true first impression. It’s where you get a name tag from a security guard behind a thick desk. This fact of life has done nothing to make lobbies more interesting. If anything, it’s resulted in a dumbing down. 

You get marble, maybe a few fake plants, and possibly a coin fountain. There are usually a couple chairs no one is meant to actually sit in. There’s no food and the music sucks. We’re spending too much time focusing on gargoyles and what color things are. A pool table would be nice, but a bowling alley would be nicer. How about installing something other than where I can leave my umbrella?

Mental Stillness

 

If an insane person yells in an empty forest, does he reply to the echoes as if it were someone else? Do we as a saner, wiser collective? These, like all things involving the truly mad, are good questions worth considering. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, what do we make of slot machine enthusiasts, horrible strikeout-prone ballplayers, unfunny comedians in search of the one audience that “gets” it? 

When a mental patient comes to you saying they’ve got a “better way to do your taxes,” do you send H&R Block packing and hand over your forms, no questions asked? Some would have you never criticize the crazy, but tents are for camping, but not for living. When someone is eating paint chips and salsa, is it okay to intervene or is it better to let mad dogs lie? 

 

And lastly, when a sad, deeply troubled, highly overrated, disturbed lunatic rambles on a podcast, do you listen and try to make sense of it? Or, as a sane person in the room, get on with your life and realize they were never all there to begin with. 

Fraud Goals

 

 

If your plan is to defraud countless people out of their hard-earned money, you better first look the part. You want to get away with an international scheme like this? Then start with picking up a comb and ironing your shirt. 

Most people are, by their very nature, trusting. But that can all change when they gaze at your 5 o’clock shadow and wrinkled tee. You want to be taken seriously? Then dress like it. There’s a reason why they call it “white collar crime.” Something you can’t exactly do without a collar. 

This type of plot doesn’t end at the dry cleaners. You need to go several steps further if you want to stay several steps ahead of the ongoing investigation. A pocket watch never hurt anyone. Unless the chain itself was long enough to lasso and then trip you on the way to the washroom. 

Going to the Bahamas is the right idea though. There you don't have to worry about wearing a suit and tie. And handcuffs come in every color.    

Lake Kari

 

Lakes aren’t like other bodies of water. They don’t flow like a river or a creek. And because of their relative size, they often forget that the ocean exists, something significantly larger and more impressive. From their vantage point, they are just like an ocean, biggest body of water in town. 

What makes a lake a lake is its water, not its dirt. But that too has started to dissipate over the years. Some blame it on hot air due to climate change, others are at a loss for the sudden evaporation. Whatever it is, there are a lot of lakes that have thimbles of H2O within their muddy confines. 

There’s one particular lake I know of out in the vast Southwestern desert, which has no chance of prospering. This isn’t like the primordial days of old when Arizona was a lush landscape of romping dinosaurs and other slack-jawed species now extinct. Some people will say, “but what about Lake Powell, Arizona’s most beautiful lake.” Look, I know a reservoir when I see one. Artifice doesn’t interest me, at least not when it comes to bodies of water. It’s not like this is Minnesota. 

Some lakes should be replaced with sand, easier in some states than others. When a lake loses its water, it’s nothing but an empty hole in the ground, a crater of distant memories. The thing is, not every lake makes a good first impression. 

The Reason for Getting Up in the Morning

 

You won’t learn this in any books but waking up wasn’t always this easy. Coffee helped to a point. People relied on extreme weather events, invading tribes, angry roosters, and dumb luck to roust them from slumber. All of which had varying degrees of reliability. Getting up was a uniformly confusing and sometimes existential crisis. Was the world ending or was it simply time to feed the piglets? A question many people have asked over the centuries. 

Most people had no way of knowing what time it was. You can claim to use the sun, but you can’t exactly look at it. It’s a guessing game for those of us without the benefit of a bureau full of Pateks. 

In the last several decades getting up was aided by the generous folks on morning television. These drugged up zombies making crude jokes and putting on a clinic of solicitous that would make the late Larry King uncomfortable. You can call someone vacuous, but to me, that means they have more room for empathy. Everyone’s welcome in there. Gabbing and gossiping. Getting a sense of the news without an understanding of it. That takes skill.  

Without morning shows, it’s both difficult to wake up and pointless to do so. These programs of indescribable inanity send us on our way. 

The only trouble is that after their final wine-soaked signoff at 10 AM, it’s downhill from there. 

The Offensive Line

 

You can’t be offended unless there’s a well-defined line, delineating between the socially acceptable and the taboo. No line, no offense. But finding where such a line exists is no easy task. Nor is finding who guards the line from the delicate and easily wilted. 

Too often these days people speak of an uncrossable line. However, no line, however distant can survive without round-the-clock surveillance. Human beings are by their very nature a pushy bunch. They will push up against offensiveness unless there’s sufficient push back. Signs, while easily installed, are hardly adequate at stemming the revolt.

Did we learn nothing from Caesar’s Rubicon traversal? Had there been something of a meeting of swords on the banks of that Roman river, who knows what the results might have been. We have the change to make things right. We can secure the line with willing and able participants, who’ve devoted their lives to unromantic work. Cameras, like signs, are supplemental. Without a third party representing the core of civilized society, it won’t work. 

A offensive line can be built with the cast offs from professional football. These country arm boys, whose shoulders skip their necks and go straight to their ears. People fortified by milk and cheese, reared in America’s true dairy land. Not many of us would choose to make a tasteless joke, no matter how hilarious, when staring into the eyes of a snorting three-hundred pounder. There needs to be someone to tell you when you’ve crossed the line. Or, better yet, show you. 

You may say something you regret.

The Space Rage

As Yogi Berra almost certainly didn’t say, “the future ain’t what it used to be.” Truer words may have never been spoken. Now I am not one for predicting things, especially technological trends, but as time marches on and 2022 draws to a close, we ought to  accept a stark reality of modern life. That this is the supposed birth year of George Jetson. A man who'd put Musk and Bezos on notice for their interstellar aspirations. And he was simply a working stiff. All of which means that we have our work cut out for us over the next forty years.

If you thought TikTokin’ Gen-zers were insufferable, you have no idea what Georgie Boy has in store for you. Just watch as he ages into his platonic form. 

We talk about the present as if it we were living during an unprecedented space age. But it’s not the case. You have to be a billionaire to take a galactic joy ride. We’re not building cities up there. We're not even building them down here. Have you been to Detroit? We’re going around in circles. And Jetson, wherever he is, is more than a few light years from Orbit City. 

I see rockets everywhere, but tell me, where are the sprockets? 

Birds of pray

 

When most people see birds (no doubt through the coated optics of their grandfather’s field glasses), they see freeloaders, singing for their supper living in subsidized birdhousing. Not me. I see their chirps and tweets as varying degrees of devotion. Birds are concerned with their place on heaven and earth. 

Roosters crowing in the morning is akin to the call to prayer heard throughout the Arab world. The way a woodpecker bounces between bark is not that dissimilar from the hallmark head-bobbing of the Hasidim. A dove’s daily cooing is not unlike a Lutheran congregation pulling from the familiar pages of their hymnal. The warble from a blue jay is eerily close to the kyrie in a Catholic mass, with its impressive vocal range. But those are simply the classics. There are others, too. 

A tufted titmouse’s whistle reminds me of the high-pitched screeching a Pentecostal preacher makes in the tunnel of a crowded subway exit during rush hour. A junco’s trilling calls to mind the messianic ramblings of a lonely scientologist auditing aspiring actors on the sunset strip. Catbirds with their confusing songs give the impression of a Jew for Jesus; a foot in two worlds. Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed the resemblance between a bald eagle – our national bird – and St. Francis of Assisi.

And then, there’s the parrot. A talented mimic, able to give the listener flashbacks to the confessional booth or reruns of the Andy Griffith Show, depending on their mood. Parrots gained their fervor on the mast of a pirate ship, arguably one of the most godless places on earth. But pirates in those days still prayed, only it was for treasure and wood cleaner. It took a few generations of buccaneers to realize that whatever they stained the deck with also works on peglegs. You don’t want your plank splitting (especially not when you’re trying to make a point), any more than your primary extremity. Before that, they concerned themselves with varnish and waxing, not understanding that it did very little to preserve. This was long before carbon fiber made its way to the high seas. Parrots are a little different. All you have to do is ask them.

Cursory Rhymes

 

Kanye, Kanye, quite contrarye,

How does your thinking flow?

With stupid beats, and dumber tweets,

And lawyers taking all your dough.  

 

Hickory dickory crock.

The MC tried to shock.

The clock struck one,

The MC was done.

Hickory dickory crock. 

 

Ha, ha, hack creep,

Have you any sense?

Ye, sir, Ye sir,

That’s not a defense.

One for your brand,

One for your ex,

And one for the agent

Who cashes your checks. 

 

Little Robin Redwest,

Sat up for a pill,

Fame, fortune went to his head,

He seems mentally ill. 

 

Little Ronnie Rapper

Sings to seem dapper.

What shall we give him?

A lighter and a bookcase. 

How shall he make it

Without a fanbase?

How will he learn 

As a certified nutcase?   

 

Trumpty Dumpty said he would call, 

Trumpty Dumpty had lots of gall.

All the king’s idiots and all the king’s smarts

Couldn’t put Trumpty back on the charts.  

Kanye had a little scam,

its facts were a little faux.

And everywhere Kanye went

The scam was sure to go;

It followed him to work one day

But made him look like a jerk.

Making grifters laugh and cry

To see a scam at work. 

 

Three dumb podcasters. Three dumb podcasters.

See how they talk. See how they talk.

They talk faster and faster,

Without ideas but the force of a pastor,

Did you ever hear such a sight, dear master,

As three dumb podcasters?

 

There was an old rhymer who lived in a shoe,

He had so many problems blamed on the Jew,

He gave fans ideas to see how they spread;  

Then lied to all who thought him well-read.

ProvocaTour

Today’s ProvocaTour is sponsored by an anonymous donor who’s generously offered his money, though not his name. He wouldn’t risk being publicly associated with something like this. First things first, let’s review the ground rules. No eating, no drinking, no wearing helmets. Tweeting is fine. But keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times and if you have to touch something, touch someone instead. Just make sure you have your lawyer nearby with a lengthy NDA.

Outside your left window, you’ll see a large hole in the ground where friends and associates are constantly tossing money into. Right beside it, is a slightly smaller, though far more meaningful depression. It’s a rabbit hole, naturally. Inside, there’s everything you ever wanted to know about random internet theories and pointlessly idiotic memes. Can you waste time inside? I mean, you could waste your whole life in there.

On the right be sure to notice a wide, eroding embankment. That’s what we call a slippery slope. The remainder of it may be in the ocean by the end of the tour. There’s hardly anything to it these days. The next portion of the tour features a wild animal. To simulate what happens, I am going to contradict the earlier stated ground rules and ask everyone to grab a long wooden stick. There’s a bear approaching the bus, so please, feel free to poke it as much as you want.  

Would you look at the time? Apparently, we’ve gone too far. The roadway is giving out. I hadn’t realized it, but we were on very thin ice. Hope everyone knows how to swim. That’s a wrap. 

Digital Natives

Or, should I say, the digitally indigenous? Either way, for these groundbreaking trailblazers, the firm embrace of technology started rather young. Their parents swapped out their umbilical cords for ethernet ones right before the doctor could say, “it’s that time, people. Take your places.” Once on the ground, cribs made way for computers.

I remember when a series of broken mouses replaced the swinging mobile above my bed. It’s one thing to create the technology over decades through unflinching commitment to the scientific method. Trial and lots of error. What is more astounding are not the minds and innovators who created the smartphone, the supercomputer, or portable music players, but the people lucky enough to born at a time when they existed.  

This is hardly a new phenomenon. In the Eisenhower years, many children were raised by television. In the years before, countless tikes were suckled by warm tunes originating from the Grand Ole Opry. So there were radio natives and TV natives before the digitally inclined.

Being a digital native comes with a great deal of responsibility. The responsibility to belittle anyone older for their torpidity in learning new skills, and criticize anyone younger for failing to appreciate the scope of technological offerings. Some people are born in a true sweet spot. We can’t all be so lucky. But one day, when time travel is perfected, we will be.