50 Ways to Peeve Your Lover

 

1.     Forget to take out the trash, Ash

2.     File your taxes late, Kate

3.     Max out your credit card, Gaspard 

4.     Overcook din, Lynn

5.     Miss a dish, Trish

6.     Stain the wall, Paul

7.     Track in mud, Bud

8.     Overwater a houseplant, Brant

9.     Spill some tea, Leigh

10.  Stain the bed, Ned

11.  Smudge the crystal, Crystal

12.  Transfer your life savings from a bank to a tube sock, Doc

13.  Buy ice cream that’s non-dairy, Terry

14.  Incessantly click your pen, Len

15.  Attribute everything in life to dumb luck, Chuck

16.  Refer to your significant other as “pal”, Hal

17.  Ignore the dehumidifier so your basement gets dank, Hank

18.  Trade your comfy bed for a gurney, Ernie

19.  Underprove your bake, Jake

20.  Don’t properly cut the wheels on a hill when you park, Mark

21.  Get an inappropriate tat, Pat

22.  Cop an attitude, Jude

23.  Lose the lease, Reese

24.  Behave like a martyr, Carter

25.  Subpar shoveling when it’s snowy, Chloe

26.  Ruin the dining table with melted candlewax, Max

27.  Act like a snob, Bob

28.  Constantly annoy, Troy

29.  Emphasize the superfluous, Russ

30.  Make a scene, Francine

31.  Too much dip, Skip

32.  Mindlessly unsort and recycle, Michael

33.  Bad breath, Seth

34.  Burn the chili, Billy

35.  Too hysteric, Eric

36.  Be naïve, Steve

37.  Perpetrate a global scam, Sam

38.  During dinner you yawn, Juan

39.  No epiphany, Tiffany

40.  Cork the wine, Tyne

41.  Always mad, Brad

42.  Move too slow, Moe

43.  Too much schtick, Rick

44.  Rant and rave, Dave

45.  Very gassy, Cassie

46.  Poor sport, Mort

47.  Never ready, Eddie

48.  Turn out to be a conman, Dan

49.  Late on the rent, Trent

50.  Lie and cheat, Pete

The 40-year-old Sturgeon

 

Most of his contemporaries were content to swim around all day. It was easy and understandable. Sturgeon can live in their sixties, notorious late bloomers in a sea full of much shorter life cycles. But this sturgeon was different. He liked swimming, not that he had much of a choice. 

He saw his friends caught up in trends and nets. Trends as in sneakers with lights on them. Nets as in fishing nets. He would never bite. It’s nice down here, he thought. Up there is strange, mysterious, and airy. He preferred to take his chances at the bottom. But he kept losing friends to the sunny surface. That’s when he caught his first glimpse of a line stuck on a neighborhood reef. He could make out the ripples of a small boat overhead.

This was his chance to get even, and more importantly, to get dinner. 

The fisherman fell straight into the water, splashing and flailing as he went deeper and deeper. I don’t have to detail what happened next with the man and the sturgeon. Suffice it to say, revenge is a dish best served at water temperature.  

Can you hate hummus?

Some people in the media will tell you that it’s not okay to hate hummus. That you can’t dislike a specific dip that gives you painful indigestion because other sauces and condiments can also lead to similar distress. They argue that other savory spreads attack your insides too. Like wild country paté. But at least with that you get a small insight into the moneyed world of 18^th century nobleman. Hummus does nothing of the sort. They concede it smells, but that hasn’t stop you from consuming fermented shark while on retracing a Viking voyage.  

The reality is, you can and should hate hummus. And you can and should hate lots of other dishes that crowd the table. You don’t have to choose between sauces and spreads. It’s a false choice to argue that if you hate hummus, you must love thousand island dressing. It’s just not true. You can hate both and still eat well. 

Errorist Attacks

Chuck Knoblauch wasn’t an errorist. As the starting second basemen on the legendary late 90s New York Yankees, Mr. Garlic  (a nod to his Teutonic forebears) or Blauchhead (a nod to his mental and physical lapses) inexplicably developed an inability to reach first base. Instead, he could easily hit hot dog vendors and unassuming fans with each errant throw. This former Gold Glove fielder found himself lost. But an errorist is something far more sinister and significantly dumber.

The label, “errorist,” has become a loaded term in recent years. Do we classify your snooty Uncle one after he confuses a fruity shiraz for a young Beaujolais? Traditionally, no. Errorists should be reserved for the breathtakingly wrong. The stunningly out of step, whose colossal mistakes make your stand in awe, mouth agape with spittle galore. You don’t attempt to wipe the drool from your chin, preferring to let it stain your recently pressed dress shirt. What a statement that is. For truth as well as your dry cleaner. 

Anyone can be misguided or a little bit confused. You can refer to your favorite sports team using the pronoun “we.” While you wear a jersey, you never seem to get any playing time. As much as it pains me to say it, you can refer to the Rockaways as “the best part of Brooklyn” despite it clearly being within the sandy boundaries of Queens.  A group of terrible tennis players shouldn’t be considered errorists either. And no amount of foot faults or obscenities hurled at line judges can change that.

Errorist organizations are different. They attack facts, truth, good old fashioned common sense. They are calculated and deliberate in their unwavering commitment to the propagation of falsehoods. What’s remarkable about the errorist as a type, is they think they’re right. That’s the difference between them and the likes of Chuck Knoblauch. He knew he was wrong as his bad throw spilled the beer and popcorn of paying customers. These people do not. They think they’re right, perhaps doing God’s work. But thinking and wishing doesn’t make it so. 

Since, ya know, they’re obviously, clearly, fundamentally, factually, and morally wrong. 

Log On, Log Off

 

Log onto your computer and read the steady stream of bad news. Get increasingly angry and certain of your moral rectitude. Read only things by people with whom you agree. Go down rabbit holes, worm holes, and black holes, only coming out the other side unchanged and unenlightened. Don’t waver even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. Change the subject. Start penning a missive without supporting points. Find the logic in your own illogic. Ignore any hint of common sense. Use antonyms as synonyms. Lose friends and allies. Casually pass around idiotic memes written by imbeciles like a joint at the Winterland Ballroom circa 1974. Cosign things only people you like. Be a little bit tribal. Be certain. Dismiss doubt. Conform. Nothing is as it seems, except for you always being right. Sometimes a cigar is just a shadowy government orchestrated plot to rob two hours of your time, ruin your breath and leave a bad taste in your mouth. Don’t trust your gut. In fact, buy extra tums just in case. And right when you’re ready to hit post and share with the world your brilliance…

 

Log off.   

The Center for Anti-Bassist Research

 

Too many people take for granted the domineering presence of the bass in contemporary music. Whether it’s jazz, rock, hip-hop, or the auto-tuned stylings of major pop stars, there is always that mindless beat thumping away in the background. 

 

What if you were told that the bass is a useless, superfluous, and utterly pointless addition to the Great American Songbook? We don’t need it. But to liberate ourselves and welcome a more just, bassless future, we need your help.

 

And by help, we mean money. Our goal is to collect every bass on the planet and set up a large bonfire on the quadrangle just off University Avenue. However, that won’t be enough. The basses currently in circulation are merely one hurdle in achieving our goals. We also need to stop production of basses at both the factory and the artisanal level. To wrest ourselves of the instrument’s clammy grip on civilization, we need to reverse centuries of rhythmic oppression. There is nothing a bass can do that a piano cannot do better. Little drummer boys have been essential to military formations since the dawn of man. Not so for little bass boys.  

 

But at the Center, we believe in changing the past as much as shaping the future. That’s why we are working with ASCAP and BMI to remove the bass from recording history through precision re-editing. Additionally, we are working on stopping the pernicious conservatory-to-bassist pipeline. So many young people choose bass because it’s there. It’s way to stay in the background and go unnoticed. At the Center, we’ve taken notice and we you will do with a tax-deductible donation.

How are things going? Great, thanks for asking. Our growing portfolio of anti-bassist mission statements is growing with bandleaders across this flawed nation adopting them. We hop that this becomes a prerequisite for every audition at any orchestra. First, you must demonstrate a commitment to the tenets of anti-bassism, then you must make us a substantial donation. 

 

By working together, our children and grandchildren might grow up never having to hear a lone bass note. Cash, checks, gold bricks accepted.  

Hello to All That

 

The Ex-New Yorker is an interesting specimen. They are, by their own constant affirmation, living their “hashtag best life” far from depravity of the Big Apple. It’s what they repeatedly tell you – always unprompted.

“I can breathe now,” they say. As if New York is a prison where they’re incapable of escaping. Good behavior is not taken into consideration. 

“Things are so much better now,” as if justifying their decision to leave a party while it was still going strong. They have no regrets about their decision. They want you, the New Yorker, to cosign. To tell them, all is well, and they did the right thing. But their ex looms too large in myth and memory, dominating every conversation, making it impossible for them to love where they are. 

What the ex-New Yorker forgets they do not have a monopoly on hating the city. Complaining here has its own regional flourishes. Who understands the failure of the subway better than someone living near one? Who can identify the screeching of an industrious rat tearing through a dumpster’s daily offerings?  

The ex-New Yorker wants absolution from the New Yorker. But it’s not up to us to provide. Nor is it up to God. It’s best left to the Department of Sanitation. Who better than them to deal with a steady spew of recycled talking points?