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. 

Journey or Destination?

Let me paint the scene. You’re chugging along a foggy road, mapless and confused. All you have at your disposal is a supposed friend sitting shotgun, letting you know that it’s not really about the destination. What is it about then? They’re happy to fill you in on the matter while you navigate a darkened highway, carefully avoiding flora, fauna and incoming text messages. 

It’s about Journey, of course. Power chords and power ballads. Overwrought refrains and saccharine stanzas. Regardless of where you’re headed, once Steve Perry’s voice pipes through the car, it no longer matters. You could be going anywhere you want. You could stop believing your gas tank has enough fuel to make it. It's not like you're going to get there.

You let your Perry partisan prattle on, knowing soon you will have to correct the record. As much as the songs of Journey have served as the soundtrack of so many lives, that can’t be what life is all about. Especially since Perry himself left the band over twenty years ago, watching from afar as he’s been replaced like so many American workers. It must’ve been what King Charles felt during those wild first Cromwell days, when all he had was his trusty spaniel and those royal locks. 

Because it’s not about Journey, it’s about the predestination. What’s done is already done. John Calvin knew it long before synthesizers dominated popular music – not that he didn’t see it coming. Or, to be precise, hear it coming. 

Predestination is freeing, not that it depends on your warm embrace. But it’s nice to know that the turns you make are immaterial. The route you take is irrelevant. You’re there, whether you know it or not. With or without Steve Perry. 

Schoolhaus Rock

Kids, no matter how much you ply them with drugs, don’t always listen to what their teachers have to say. They stare at things other than what’s on the blackboard. Their eyes wander, their minds wonder. And they don’t raise their hands. Music has a way of cutting away the chaff, letting it fall to the floor for janitors to clean up after school. If you want to teach people, there’s no better tool than a screen. Would Alex in Clockwork have learned anything without a little extra time in front of the tube? I don’t think so. He needed it. We needed it. And they need it now. Here is my favorite melodious update for the twenty-first century classroom, I'm Just a Book...

Why are you trying to make us read? 

When bad ideas spread like a weed.

 

I’m just a book

Yes, I’m only a book

And I’m waitin’ here for some line cook.

‘Cause when you toss me onto that great big pile,

You won’t have to interpret my special bile.

For things to heat up, it can sure take a while. 

People say all sorts of things about who I am,

That I’m worse than what’s in your folder for spam,

So gather your matches, find some cover and scram.  

 

Gee, you have lots of courage to walk up to that fire.

Though it sounds quite beautiful, like a funeral pyre. 

 

Then that makes me a latter day Joan of Arc,

Would you do me a favor and make a spark? 

I’d like to get started and leave my mark.

Since I began the day as a forbidden page turner,

Students flocked to me, their syllabus spurner,

Nourishment for the knowledge yearner. 

I didn’t mean to give them such a scare,

Though it’s probably too late to clear the air.

There’s lots of smoke, so please say a prayer. 

 

What are they afraid of? That’s what I don’t get.

Let me know if you want the pile relit. 

 

Not every idea goes down easy and tastes oh so sweet.

Some tastes must be acquired, like genuine street meat.

Not from a food truck, but roadkill, what a treat.

I make people uncomfortable, I’m such a pain.

I disrupt the masses, I can ruin a brain.

So fry me up with a chef like Bourdain.

I’m not here to make trouble or to cause a stir,

Better to pretend I’m a horrible slur.

Wow, with all that smoke, today’s been a blur. 

 

You sound interesting, I’d like to see what’s inside.

Flip through you now that I’m clear-eyed.

 

I don’t think that’s wise,

I’m honestly full of lies.  

 

I’d like to see for myself,

If you belong on my bookshelf. 

 

I’m warning you’ll feel some regret,

And ignorance is no sweat. 

 

You’re just a book.

Why can’t I take a look? 

 

The worst thing that can happen is for you to learn,

It’s better to be safe and finish the burn.

Judge a book by its cover or rather, its urn? 

Blurb Your Enthusiasm

 

Advance Malaise for Clove Cussler’s GARLIC PRESS: How a certain flowering plant can revolutionize and save the Fourth Estate from certain death, and taste a whole lot better in the process. 

“The subtitle is a little long, no?”

-Peels Morgan

“This is not a good book in the sense that it’s well-written. The author isn’t a stylist and he doesn’t have a way with words. But the subject matter is important. I’ll give him that.”

-Allium O'Flaherty

“As I’m writing this, the book is situated between two rolls of the softest toilet paper. I won’t name it – since such a double-barreled advertisement wouldn't be fair. Charmin' hasn't ponied up any money for the privilege. Oops.”

-Harper Leek 

“No expense was spared in the writing on this tome. Except for maybe an editor. I mean, really. The book jacket is big enough it could replace my vintage down coat. All I’d have to do is cut a few arm holes in each sleeve and resign myself to adorning my backside with the author’s portrait until the start of spring.”

-H.G. Smells

“Look, I didn’t read it. I was supposed to. I had months and months of email reminders and phone calls from my agent. It must've slipped my mind. There are quite a few things higher on my priority list than discursive takes on garlic. I just couldn’t pick it up and get started. But I have the benefit of reading the other blurbs first. And I have to say…interesting.”

-Chive James

“I don’t get it. Is the newspaper made from garlic or is garlic a metaphor for the bitter taste hard news tastes like for the average consumer? Is a double-page spread suddenly something done on toast with a butter knife and a few turns from a nearby pepper mill?”

-Bulb Costas

“Thought it was going to more about the whole happy onion family. Very disappointed.” 

-Mel Cooks

“The author dances around the issue but never takes a firm stance on the use of garlic powder. It’s almost like he’s afraid to alienate a certain segment of the pizza-chewing public.” 

-Immanuel Plant

“Not the book anyone needed or remotely wanted. Though it did give me the motivation to bake some garlic bread. If you want to call that a positive, albeit unintended consequence, so be it.”

-Elizabreath Gilbert

“Great, now I’m hungry.”

-Garrlic Shandling