Endless nights

 

(Photo by Madisyn Ahne)

Welcome to Olive Garden. I can tell you’re eyeing the endless pasta bowls and the long caravan of bottomless breadstick baskets. You’ve been here before, I take it? But not like this. For decades, we Olive Gardeners toiled in the soil of hyperbole, making promises no honest person could keep. 

 

That all changes tonight, with this dinner. Your dinner. Think of it like a pilot meal. A multi-course apologia making up for our collective shame. In the Before Times, breadsticks and pasta weren’t truly endless. It was up to the diners when to throw in the napkin and live to eat another carbohydrate. However, now we’re seeing more clearly, through lenses of alfredo sauce. 

 

Endless means endless. When you enter Olive Garden, you’re entered paradise. And there’s no getting out. Not until we’re satisfied you’ve given it everything you have. The food keeps coming, for eternity. The good news is that within our new dining model, there is no business model. So don’t worry about the bill. Since it never comes. 

 

But you’re expected to eat, you’re not expected to leave. Fast food was a sad commentary on society, whereas this isn’t quite the slow food movement, but it’s closer. It’s a movement where food comes at reasonable speeds, only it never stops. There’s no ability to tap out or wave off the breaded procession. You can sleep, for a time. Our waiters will wake you and feed you. 

 

When you’re here, you don’t need family. You have entrees to fill the void.   

Footlessball

(Pete Gogolak)

 I know that global fiends fancy themselves the guardians of the one true football. But here in America, we have another game by the same name. I don’t have an issue with this. Great words have multiple meanings. A rug belongs on the dome of a bald man or in the living room of a prosperous family. As just one example.

 

But football involves so many head injuries, that one may want to call it “headball.” Foot injuries happen, yes. But they are largely ones without any ball-to-foot contact. Tripping, stepping, stubbing and the like. Kickers are much maligned, when they should be the real stars. Using your feet in football should give you a leg up. 

 

Punters and kickers are derided as not genuine athletes, yet they are the keepers of the foot flame. The fans deserve more than a nominal nod to one’s lower half and a team of players who touch the ball with the appropriate extremities. It's the name of the game. 

 

Their feet. 

Dear God, tell us how we did

 

(Richard Dawson, Family Feud ca. 1980)

Hi there. Glad to see you again. Not in the corporeal sense, but in a slightly more ethereal way now that I’ve entered your crowded email inbox. Here’s the deal, last night you stopped by “Rings ‘n Things” a regional fast-food destination specializing in onion rings and other edible things. You ordered three baskets of onion rings with special Paul Onion sauce and two buckets of things. The entire order took eight minutes and thirteen seconds to prepare. You and your party demolished every morsel in under three minutes and thirty-six seconds. You ran out of napkins twice. You cleared your thought a few times and nearly lost your balance walking to the parking lot. 

 

So, how’d we do? We rely on surveys for bonuses, menu additions and competitions at weekly corporate retreats. Your words, scripture. Your actions, sacrament. And you'll be automatically entered to win a raffle of some kind.

Cold Ones

 

(Sean Evans, Hot Ones, YouTube series 2015-present)

 

Hi and welcome to “Cold Ones.” The web show where celebrities drink five beers with increasing ABV as the host, sprinkles in mindless questions as their inhibitions slowly begin to loosen. Here’s a look back at the summer’s best interview.

 

[First beer: 0.0 ABV]

 

Nice. Quite smooth. As I was saying backstage, I shot this movie in the south of France last year…

 

You were once quoted saying that “films are moving pictures but actors are the ones who have to constantly move. It’s why I have a house in Lake Como, Malibu, Bermuda, etc.” What did you mean?

 

Um, it means that real estate is complicated, which is why I assembled a team to handle my various properties around the globe. My new film is called "Enough Already." I think you'll be pleased.

 

[Second beer: 4.4% ABV]

 

Not bad. Tastes a bit like water. 

 

You haven’t won an Oscar. Why?

 

I’ve never been nominated. That’s probably the biggest reason. But this last film I shot might change all that…

 

Is it true that early in your career you actually competed against livestock for parts during so-called “cattle calls”?

 

Once. It was a tractor commercial. Like I was saying, France is an amazing place to shoot a film.

 

[Third beer: 5.7% ABV]

 

Ah, better. This might be my favorite.

 

According to trip manifests, you visited Epstein’s Island several times between 2005 and 2015. What was that like? 

 

Islands are pretty much all the same. Unless of course you’re there during hurricane season, which thankfully, I never was. Not unlike the location of my newest film. We also had some island shots in the Mediterranean. 

 

[Fourth beer: 7.1% ABV]

 

Not for me. But my new film is very much for me. As you might expect. It’s about a lonely man in a complicated world who dons spandex to save it. It’s rather deep, considering the subject matter. 

 

But here’s something that was for you. When you were in college you marched with Fashionable Fascists, with the slogan “dress the same, think the same.” 

 

I couldn’t afford clothes, and the group subsidized my wardrobe. You might even say it was my first acting gig. But my latest acting gig was something special. 

 

[Fifth beer? Maybe not beer: 10.2% ABV]

 

Revolting. Tastes like motor oil. 

 

So you’ve tried motor oil, have you?

 

My father was a mechanic. He actually has a small role in the film. 

 

We have a tradition here at “Cold Ones” where guests are asked to reveal their darkest, innermost secrets. We promise to turn the cameras off. It’s a show of respect and trust. Meanwhile, please drink this mystery beverage. 

 

What’s in it? 

That’s all the time we have today. But good luck. Not sure if you have anything to plug, but this was a great experience. As always, stay hydrated and always interview responsibly

Dog Fans Bid Pig Adieu

 

(Ted Williams at bat, Fenway Park, 1960)

Coney Island, in Brooklyn, is a toxic little sliver of a boardwalk. Everyone is yelling and shoveling overpriced grub into their gullets. The stage is set with men and women, who in a different time, would be the subject of oil paintings. These generous benefactors would’ve lived in a state of terminal lethargy and self-indulgence, in a home littered with gout stools for their bulbous, severely inflamed feet. Brooklyn artifacts of a previously ambulatory existence. But in our time, they are lauded, praised, and worshipped, represented, clearer than any other individual, what it means to be human. There, in full display of cameras and an adoring, slavering public, they wolf down as many cylinders of tubed meat they can, symbols of Man’s digestive irregularities. 

 

The tryst between Brooklyn and Joe Chestnut has been no summer fling. It’s been long and sordid. It always struck me as strange that for a man famous for guzzling processed meat product of an indeterminate origin has the distinction of being named after a rather healthy nut. The romance began fittingly with an outrageous number of hot dogs, when the young glutton announced to himself through wet bits of half-chewed buns, “All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say, ‘There goes the greatest eater who ever lived.’” 

 

Even heroes get bored with their gifts after an extended period of dominance. It explains why Joey Chestnut has opted for a different variety of tubed meat, after having consumed the traditional blend more than any man on earth. He needed a new challenge with a new vegan hot dog. Chestnut is merely the latest in a long line of geniuses forsaking their greatest talent for something fresh. If Keith Richards can give up drinking, then Chestnut can embrace the plant-based arts.  

 

Whatever residue of second-hand nitrates that remain, my relationship with Chestnut came quite late. Like many, I first came to understand his gifts in contrast to his main rival, Kobayashi. The man he faced off with on Labor Day, nowhere near the salt air of Kings County either. The two met in an undisclosed location, fit for a Netflix streamer. Las Vegas is not where these two men belong. These two Tarrares of towering consumption met inside a hotel for a ten-minute romance. It wasn’t Coney Island. It wasn’t where they became stars. 

 

For me, Chestnut is the classic eater who doesn’t care about the mustard-stained napkin difference between something natural and something not. He never asked anyone in charge what’s exactly in a hot dog? Is it healthy? Then again, at that quantity, what is? No, he shoveled, he chomped, he guzzled. He did so because the crowds kept coming back, growing larger and larger, mirroring his distended belly and breathtaking lack of shame. 

 

He's left a funny taste in the public’s mouth for years. Popping up a few times and then disappearing into obscurity. Where he goes, what he does on days not July 4^th is something most people would care not to think about. We don’t know what he’s like at dinner, and we don’t want to know. It would ruin our sense of myth and his own mystique to see the man many calls J.C. politely polishing off a normal size dish and a dim restaurant. People still want to know what’s next. This can’t be it. Can it? But they won’t get a response. Not from him, and not directly. 

 

Because Gods do not answer text messages, they vomit into large slop buckets backstage while a production assistant holds their hair. 

Interview: Phil A. Buster

 

(BOK Center in Tulsa, OK July 20, 2020, photo by Ian Maule/Tulsa World via AP)

Most interviews are, if not like pulling teeth, they bear some resemblance to ancient dentistry. This is especially so when talking to politicians of any stripe. Phil A. Buster is a talking head, a seasoned pol and an elected official. Given what’s going on all around us from now until November, I wanted to finally dive into the seedy world of politics with a bona fide expert. 

 

MTP: Who are you voting for?

 

PAB: It’s interesting really, the thought and then the decision. On the one hand you have a man, and on the other you have a woman. But both are people, human beings, homo sapiens. We’ve all – all of us including you and me – have come a long way since those sweaty days in Olduvai Gorge. To be here, to be talking to you is nothing short of a miracle. What we’ve gone through, winding across the continents, rivers and streams, mountains and land bridges. It’s a beautiful thing. Because people are people. Sometimes I think of my dogs as people, and in certain key aspects they are more human than us. More loyal, even kinder. What listeners they can be. They know, maybe not what to say, but how to act when you need them. It’s winding, wending. We took a circuitous route to get here. It wasn’t always direct or first class. Speaking of which, I sometimes wish I was alive during the heyday of rail travel. The Orient Express without any murders. That was a way to go places. You can see where you’re going. In a plane, sure you get some views, but mostly it’s clouds and that’s only if you travel at certain times or day and have a window seat. Which as we know, is not the seat you want. I’m an aisle man. I need the extra room to swing my leg before the food cart rumbles through the cabin. Now is it a great place to walk around and get your steps in? Maybe not. But it’s worked for me. I’m sorry, I got off on a few tangents. Did I answer your question? 

 

MTP: Thanks for your time.

Walks of life

 

(Getty)

You might think walking is a rudimentary activity practiced to varying degrees of proficiency by most bipeds. But you’d be wrong. Like anything, there are degrees. The object is get from point A to point B without interruption or distraction. You aren’t on foot to make friends or small talk. You follow the crows as much as humanely possible, through traffic, fountains and expansive gaggles of oblivious tourists. 

 

You’re on foot to make good time, not great time. Great time requires an internal combustion engine. But you’re meant to get as close as possible to the ambler in front of you. Tailgating isn’t a concern, since we have no tails. Though rearends are possible, since we do have those.

 

Breathing on someone is a message for them to get out of the way. They should hear you fidgeting with your keys, a jangle signaling them to pull over.

 

Walks aren’t meant to be relaxing; they’re meant to be productive. Otherwise, take a nap instead. 

Rodney Safetyfield

 

(Rodney Dangerfield, 1972)

I get lots of respect, lots and lots of respect, I tell ya. When I come home after a long day at the office, my kids give me a standing ovation. They’re just so happy to see me. My dog feeds me, and it’s quite good honestly. 

 

I get plenty of respect, I’m considered an upstanding member of the community. Whenever I ride the subway, the disabled, pregnant and elderly offer up their seats, not wanting to see me stand for even a single stop. It’s a rather humbling experience. 

 

I get a good amount of respect, a really fair amount. Nice, quite nice. The other day I was getting lunch at a deli and the man making my sandwich tipped me. It was nice, I never carry cash anymore. 

 

I get a great deal of respect, more respect than most my age. It’s humbling, really. My wife paid for her engagement ring and proposed to me, said t was the least she could do. 

 

I get tons of respect, a heaping pile of respect, Oh yeah. I met Aretha Franklin at a hotel and she held the door for me. 

 

Imagine that?

Too many cooks?

(Jeremy Allen White in The Bear, FX, 2022-present)

“Too many cooks in the kitchen.” This is a frequent chorus from a project mired in the muck of group dynamics. Is it really the main concern? I like cooks. I want cooks in the kitchen. That’s where they belong. The number itself doesn’t particularly interest me. 

I object to non-cooks in the kitchen. Leaning against appliances or commenting on the wainscotting. Plumbers, electricians, baton twirlers and lion tamers. Standing around and obstructing foot paths is better than that. 

Cooks belong in kitchens. Too many kitchens are full of gawkers and oglers, obscurers and loiterers. A group of confused individuals committed to getting involved in the preparation of a dish. Have you tried this? Have you tried that? What’s the deal with saffron? It doesn’t help the meal. Eating is not a substitute for cooking. You eat to live, you cook to make a living. And therein lies the difference. 

Hungry?

Dr Jekyll and Dr Jekyll

(Mark McGwire, USA Today Sports)

Not too deep within the shallow outcroppings of your soul exists a creaky lever, that when pulled, welcomes a totally new personality. It’s something reasonable people only use under extreme duress. Should an actual emergency require such a change, it’s there waiting in your psyche, powered by adrenaline and other unmentionables.

 

Tragically, many people consider a cocktail, vape pen or a psychedelic retreat a viable excuse to broaden one’s horizons. Your horizons can only be so broad. We damned athletes for performance enhancing drugs, the same moral judgment should be applied to personality enhancing ones. 

You shouldn’t change from therapy or long conversations with friends. Not for someone who had an extra martini at a charity golf outing and warns all the waiters, “say goodbye to Jake and hello to Big Joey.” 

 

Multiple personalities are something best left to those diagnosed with the eponymous disorder.

 

Debatable

 

(John F. Kennedy debates Richard M. Nixon, 1960, Associated Press)

Did you watch last night’s debate?

No, I didn’t catch it, it was on too late.

But didn’t you hear, it went great?

No, I had too much on my plate.

Almost every answer was first rate.

But I’ve lost respect for the fourth estate.

That’s okay, I’ll do you a favor and annotate

There’s still too much time to bloviate

Still want me to automate?

There’s not much to celebrate

Anything else to resonate?

Neither that nor resuscitate 

Any faith in the welfare state?

Am I allowed to vacillate?

Only if you want another Watergate

Wouldn’t want to overstate

You’d be surprised what the public will tolerate

Do you care about either running mate?

I’d rather defibrillate.

Ya know, some watch just to commiserate. 

Sounds better to evacuate 

What if they incriminate? 

Exonerate, consecrate or indoctrinate?

Not much left to disseminate

Lots to capitulate

Or impersonate?

Usually gesticulate and berate

What is there left to evaluate?

Are we supposed to donate?

To whom: the newish candidate?

Or the future inmate?

But by not watching, I don’t need to recuperate.

Maybe next cycle, I’ll recalculate

It’s not exactly hate

But it might’ve been something I ate. 

Voice in the wilderness

 

(James Earl Jones in a 1982 Broadway production of William Shakespeare's Othello, photo by Martha Swipe, New York Public Library)

It’s not always what you say, but how you say it. The phonebook, an artifact of a simpler epoch, is often cited as a fair verbal test for the truly mellifluous. Ticking off a list of Polish plumbers sounds easy enough. But does it sound beautiful? Voicemails harken back to when people were unreachable. Out and about and nowhere to be found. A nice voice can make the caller forget the reason they were calling in the first place.  

 

You can read the menu in silent desperation while the waiter waits patiently for your decision. Or you can belt out each ingredient like an opera star. 

A great voice can cut through birdsong, propellor song and other examples of manmade or natural noise pollution. A great voice is not a voice of a single generation, but a voice for every generation. Leaf blowers, lawnmowers, chainsaws and many things not used by professional landscapers are no match.

 

Each piece of incomprehensible fine print is typically ignored by the average tax preparer. There are those who can utter any old piece of tax code minutia and render the room speechless. And not because of the temerity to claim extra dependents. Coming out the right mouth, nutritional facts can almost sound good for you. 

 

Oh, and a great voice is also nice in the movies or on stage, too

Mirage

 

(Noel & Liam Gallagher, 1990s, Getty)

 

How do you create a successful band? It’s a recipe that many still fail to grasp whether in basements, garages, or gazebos. Even if there’s evidence laying all around us, under dusty amps and cord clumps. It’s true you need good songs, but you don’t need original songs. Let me amend that, you need songs that appear to be original but like tailgating an ambulance, merely drafting off their past success. The audience feels like a tune is eerily familiar it’s usually because it is eerily familiar. 

 

And you don’t need good poetry. That’s the thing about poetry. Put any decent rhyme to catchy music and your job is done. Just two blokes in a band that was once massively successful, who’ve sailed on the coattails of ancient work for decades. You see, being a great artist isn’t always about producing great work. It’s about criticizing other artists, furrowing your brow during interviews and maintaining a hostile view towards pretty much everything. Ornery over irony, since few know the difference. Convincing the public you’re talented requires adopting a persona that feigns interest in all things. Stay mysterious. 

 

Do this and you’ll be fine. When fans squint through their trendy sunglasses, you appear like a good band. A great band. Only the view is amid the desolation of a harsh desert. There’s no water, only sand. No animals, only camels. They’re desperate to attach themselves to something meaningful. Like an oasis they embrace the annoying melodies and maudlin lyrics against their better judgment and without the assistance of drugs.

 

It’s not the nineties anymore. They're older. They know the difference between water and sand. Because this? This isn't a comeback. This isn't a reunion.

This is a mirage. 

The Class of Emails

 

(Weasel)

Hello class, today you will be learning how to craft deliciously nebulous sentences for maximal deniability. Don’t know what nebulous means? That’s a good thing. You shouldn’t. use a dictionary to find cool words, not definitions. The less you know, the more you can say.  But the more you say, the less clear you should be. Pepper your emails with long words that just feel right. Was the meeting “woebegone”? Maybe. Maybe not. The point is that people will be searching and by the time they have deciphered the note, you’re gone for the day, tucking into the cocktail hour with extreme prejudice.  

 

Instead of saying, “we’re doing X” say “we’re considering thinking about the possibility of doing x under the right circumstances that need to be weighed through pros and cons.” 

 

Understand? Not really? Good. You’re learning. The more exclamation points, the better, especially when making a demand of an agitated underling.  

 

Use colors, bold, italics, underlines, strikethrough for added emphasis and unclarity. What you want is for someone to be so confused what you’ve written that they give up and move on. Apathy creates a fine working environment. 

 

Any questions that I won't understand? 

All things being sequel

 

(Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice, dir. Tim Burton, 1988)

Instead of focusing on mediocre movies that place a large emphasis on spandex, let’s take beloved artifacts of pop culture that no one has ever considered following up on and do exactly that. Right when you think there’s nothing more to say is the best time to say something...more.

Dog Day Evening 

 

Front Window

 

Some Pulp Fiction

 

Sound of a Woman

 

Eight Samurai

 

The Big Lebowski

Some Like It Hotter

Mostly about Eve

Closer Encounters of the Third Kind

Triple Indemnity

North by North

Midday Cowboy

From Here to Not Quite Eternity 

The Fourth Man

Lawrence of Suburbia

Apocalypse Then

Mr. Smith Leaves Washington

Goodfellas 2: Greatfellas

 

Multi-factor authentication

 

(Mission Impossible, dir. Brian de Palma, 1996)

 

What’s your name?

 

What’s your mother’s maiden name?

 

What’s your mother’s father’s uncle’s aunt’s maiden name?

 

What’s your dog’s name?

 

What’s your dog name?

 

Where did you go to high school?

 

Why did you go to high school?

 

What did you have for dinner last night?

 

What did you want to have for dinner last night?

 

When did you have dinner last night?

 

What are you doing with your life?

 

Why are you here?

Hello, I’m an automatic reply

 

(Monica Vitti in L'Avventura, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)

 

Why deal with a written response when you can automate something to suit the situation? 

 

Hi, I’m on vacation and away from my computer, phone or any other trappings of modern technology. 

 

Hello, I’m currently out of the office, watching the sunset through

a champagne flute from the deck of a Russian

oligarch’s yacht.

 

Hi there, I’m under indictment and have been advised by my legal counsel to avoid unnecessary correspondence. 

 

I can’t respond to your email right now, since I’m playing a game of chess with a nice man with a considerable amount of drool on his shirt at a public park.

 

When I return from my lavish escapades, your note will be at the bottom of the pile (yes, you read that correctly, I print out all my emails and stack them in a large, paper pile)

 

My time is clearly more valuable than your time because you’re reading this while I’m not even writing it.

 

You have the wrong email. Try again.

 

This is the closest you’re going to get to a response from me, so enjoy it.

 

No.