OK, this is a hectic time of year. I’ll give you that. But, Regalers and Regalettes, I see your hectic and raise you two more hectics, and a damn frenzy.
I am writing this column, the one you are reading right now, on Dec. 21. You are reading it after Christmas. You, like many of my readers, are probably still alive. Me? It’s iffy.
So I sit down to write. I look at the computer. Actually, I look at a computer monitor that is not on. We’ve had a power outage, which I quickly determine is the reason why my computer power is out. I swear in three languages: English, Greek and Navy Sailor. At first, the power does not respond to these requests. So I am considering getting 10 pencils and a legal pad and going 1952 on the column. But then, doggone it, the computer screen leaps to life. Maybe there is a god.
After dodging that hectic-producing bullet, I settle in to write again. I smell something that I know the smell of. It starts with “P” and ends with “P” and has two “Os” in the middle. Yes, Virginia, it is poop. Dog poop. Hadley the Airedale dog poop.
I follow my nose into the bedroom and indeed there are some deposits of love on the rug. Then Marge, following her ears, hears me yelling in Sailor again and she comes into the bedroom. I tell her it was Hadley, not me. She groans and goes to get the dog poop cleaning supplies that we carry with us at all times. And she comes back with a bag and some paper towels and a bottle of odor-killing spray/cleaner stuff and we start to clean up. Then she starts to scoop the oopay up with a spatchula. Yes, a spatchula! She says she will wash it. I say I will be eating my fried eggs at Denny’s.
Marge leaves to shop. I put Hadley outside to, if he had a dog conscience, commit suicide. And again I sit down to write. I’m thinking of you. Always you. Never myself. You, the reader, are king. I, your humble writer, am peasant serf slave to your kingness.
So I type a couple of sentences. Really good sentences. Sentences some other writer would write. And then the doorbell rings. My neighbor says Merry Christmas and then he says did I know that one of his trees fell into my yard last night in the windstorm and broke my fence and my birdbath feeder and hit the side of our house and maybe killed my pets. Thanks for sharing, St. Nick.
I sit back down to write. I am going to spit hectic out and stomp on its little lima bean green ass. Yes, hectic is lima bean green. Sumbitch. And just then the phone rings. I do something I never do. I pick it up. It’s the Discover Card fraud unit checking to see if I really am using my credit card to buy Sharper Image crap. I tell them, “No, I’m not that dumb, hah hah. You think I’m that dumb. I haven’t used the card. At Sharper Image. Hah hah. Not me.” But because I am a law-abiding citizen, and part George Washington, I cannot tell a lie, so I say to the fraud guy, “Uh, I think it was my wife. She falls for that Sharper Image junk all the time.”
I sit back down at the computer. My stomach is grinding pretty good. Old hectic may be getting in his licks. In fact, I have created some intestinal pebbles and they have moved out of my stomach down through the bowels and out my urethra and into my shorts and slipped down my pants leg and have fallen on the floor. They are small, and round, and black, and shiny. I decide to sell them on E-Bay as marble antiques. Aggies.
Just then I remember I have some Christmas errands I have to do — right now. So I drive down to South Lake and actually find a parking spot on Lake Ave. (The last time this has happened was before World War II.) I get out of my car and go in and pick up a gift that I had ordered. And then I stop in to browse at William Sonoma and I just happen to stumble onto the exact gift I have been looking for and I buy it. However, I have to wait an hour for them to wrap it. So I rearrange the remaining incubating intestinal pebbles in my intestines and I shop for a few other items. Hectic is laughing openly at me.
In an hour I go out to the car. I have a parking ticket on the windshield. Hectic is falling on his butt, rolling around. He’s slapping his big, hectic thighs. I had to avert my eyes.
I drive home. I sit down at the you-know-what. The monitor has a note saying I have an email. I look at the email. It’s from Amazon. “We are sorry to inform you that, because of unusually high demand and our lack of competence, the really hard-to-find present you bought from us, and the one we promised you would be there by Christmas, is currently out of stock, and our new inventory of this valued item will not arrive until Feb. 12, if’en.” Mr. Hectic was pee-laughing.
Then Marge got back from shopping and said, “How’s your column coming, Honey? Oh, did you remember you have to get the Honey Baked Ham today?” Mr. Hectic looked at me. He tried to hold back a smile. He let out a little fart chortle. “Go get the damn ham. Nobody gives a shit about your column anyway.”
So I’m sorry. I apologize. I never got the chance to write this column. I’m pretty sure it would have been my best one. Wanna a slice of ham?
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Get Your Bells Jingled (Cigar Smoke 12-20-07)
Well, it’s that time of year again. I was walking in the Santa Anita Mall the other day and I smiled my holiday smile of charming cheer and goodwill and said to someone I thought was a nice lady, “Merry Christmas.” She did not answer me. What she did was cover her kid’s ears.
So I said, “Uh, Happy Holidays?” Nothing. So I said, “Sure hope you have some traditional tidings. I hear those are pretty nice.” Still nothing. So I pulled the kid’s hands off his ears and I said, “Your mommy is really your daddy.”
No, none of that actually happened. It was all in my psychotic paranoid fantasy world.
What really happened is some guy said, “Hi, how you doing?” and I said, “So’s your old man, buddy!”
After that friendly exchange, I walked over to the store that I associate with Christmas: Sharper Image. Every December I say to myself, “Jim, you wish-monger, where do you think you can find really incredibly cheap crap that has no recognizable use and is way, way overpriced?” and then I go to Sharper Image.
And sometimes when I go to Sharper Image and can’t find anything really laughably dumb and expensive, I amble up the way to Brookstone. I’ve never been disappointed there. Like, this year, some lucky person on my Christmas list will be receiving his own personal “Remote Control Barbecue Grill Temperature Gauge.” You probably think I’m making this up as an attempt at humor. Well, if you read my column regularly, (Then congratulations, you’re the one!) you know I don’t believe in humor.
I swear on a stack of Christmas coupons that this is a real item. It is dumb. It is useless. It is overpriced. It is real, dammit. I guess there is a real need for this item. How many times have you been barbecuing and you go into the house and sit down to watch a football game and say, “Man, I sure wish I had a remote control temperature gauge so I wouldn’t have to stand up and go all the way back out to the patio which is 18 feet away to check on how hot my meat is.”
But, before I buy it, I decide to go back to Sharper Image and do some comparison-shopping. I say to the Sharper Image clerk, “You got anything more stupid than this here remote control bullshit?”
He looks at me, pauses, rubs his chin, and says, “We sure do. Come over here. We just got these in. Don’t forget your wallet, sir.” And he shows me this “Projection Video iPod Attachment Console Double Amp Speaker Alarm Clock.” He tells me it will project the time on the ceiling in two-foot high letters. I am not overwhelmed. I am just whelmed. So, he adds, “It lets you hook up your iPod directly to the console base, and then you can wake up to Mötley Crüe yelling in the morning and see giant letters on your ceiling spelling out 6:30.” And he said, “It’s only $125.” I said, “I already did that back in the ‘60s for free, without a clock, and my giant letters had hair on them and were on fire.”
Well, before the guy could show me the “Elvis Gorilla Robotic Keyboard” for only $299, I thought I should eat lunch. So I go over to one of my favorite places, Johnny Rockets. I love the simplicity of that place: just a short menu, great hamburgers, good prices, the checkerboard floors and tables and shorts. And onion rings you can squeeze the oil out of and use for your car. I love that place.
So I order my Original Hamburger with everything on it and some fries and my Diet Coke (I don’t know who that Diet Coke fools anymore). And I’m feeling kind of Christmassed out. I’m just sitting there waiting for both my food and for the other shopping foot to drop, and this young guy brings me my burger and then he puts down the fries and bless his big ol’ pea-picking heart, he takes a paper plate and he takes a squeeze-bottle of ketchup and he squeeze-draws a little happy-face Santa with the ketchup on my plate. It was very moving. Really. I actually waited until I had eaten more than half of my hamburger before I destroyed his artwork with my first French fry.
Well, since I was feeling so good — yes, maybe even jolly — with my new happy face mood, I decided I would not spoil it by doing any more shopping. So I went out into the parking lot to cuss out some fellow sorry excuses-for-parkers. By the way, to keep in the holiday spirit, I did cuss them out to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
Then I went home. And I told Marge about my happy face Santa ketchup moment, and she lovingly said, “Hmm? I didn’t think you were gay.” And then I told her about the Brookstone and Sharper Image episodes, and I couldn’t believe what she said next. My sometimes-loving wife was about to Charlie Brown my Christmas butt.
She said, “I hope you didn’t buy that Remote Control Thermometer thing.”
I said, “Yes, I bought it. I humiliated myself. I have it. Right here!”
And she said, “Well, Honey Pumpkin Poo Poo, I didn’t think you would really get it, so I bought one, too.”
I could not believe it. She had pulled a Lucy on me. Just when I was kicking that barbecued football remote, she pulled it back. She told me to go buy it. I bought it. Then she buys it herself. And I’m left holding the thermometer. Charlie and I are going to go get loaded.
Well, Merry Christmas everybody! I would just like to leave you with my new favorite Christmas hymn. I can hear it now. The soft female chorus voices. The haunting organ music in the background. “Give a, give a, give a, give a, give a Garmin. Garmin dot com. Garmin dot com.”
So I said, “Uh, Happy Holidays?” Nothing. So I said, “Sure hope you have some traditional tidings. I hear those are pretty nice.” Still nothing. So I pulled the kid’s hands off his ears and I said, “Your mommy is really your daddy.”
No, none of that actually happened. It was all in my psychotic paranoid fantasy world.
What really happened is some guy said, “Hi, how you doing?” and I said, “So’s your old man, buddy!”
After that friendly exchange, I walked over to the store that I associate with Christmas: Sharper Image. Every December I say to myself, “Jim, you wish-monger, where do you think you can find really incredibly cheap crap that has no recognizable use and is way, way overpriced?” and then I go to Sharper Image.
And sometimes when I go to Sharper Image and can’t find anything really laughably dumb and expensive, I amble up the way to Brookstone. I’ve never been disappointed there. Like, this year, some lucky person on my Christmas list will be receiving his own personal “Remote Control Barbecue Grill Temperature Gauge.” You probably think I’m making this up as an attempt at humor. Well, if you read my column regularly, (Then congratulations, you’re the one!) you know I don’t believe in humor.
I swear on a stack of Christmas coupons that this is a real item. It is dumb. It is useless. It is overpriced. It is real, dammit. I guess there is a real need for this item. How many times have you been barbecuing and you go into the house and sit down to watch a football game and say, “Man, I sure wish I had a remote control temperature gauge so I wouldn’t have to stand up and go all the way back out to the patio which is 18 feet away to check on how hot my meat is.”
But, before I buy it, I decide to go back to Sharper Image and do some comparison-shopping. I say to the Sharper Image clerk, “You got anything more stupid than this here remote control bullshit?”
He looks at me, pauses, rubs his chin, and says, “We sure do. Come over here. We just got these in. Don’t forget your wallet, sir.” And he shows me this “Projection Video iPod Attachment Console Double Amp Speaker Alarm Clock.” He tells me it will project the time on the ceiling in two-foot high letters. I am not overwhelmed. I am just whelmed. So, he adds, “It lets you hook up your iPod directly to the console base, and then you can wake up to Mötley Crüe yelling in the morning and see giant letters on your ceiling spelling out 6:30.” And he said, “It’s only $125.” I said, “I already did that back in the ‘60s for free, without a clock, and my giant letters had hair on them and were on fire.”
Well, before the guy could show me the “Elvis Gorilla Robotic Keyboard” for only $299, I thought I should eat lunch. So I go over to one of my favorite places, Johnny Rockets. I love the simplicity of that place: just a short menu, great hamburgers, good prices, the checkerboard floors and tables and shorts. And onion rings you can squeeze the oil out of and use for your car. I love that place.
So I order my Original Hamburger with everything on it and some fries and my Diet Coke (I don’t know who that Diet Coke fools anymore). And I’m feeling kind of Christmassed out. I’m just sitting there waiting for both my food and for the other shopping foot to drop, and this young guy brings me my burger and then he puts down the fries and bless his big ol’ pea-picking heart, he takes a paper plate and he takes a squeeze-bottle of ketchup and he squeeze-draws a little happy-face Santa with the ketchup on my plate. It was very moving. Really. I actually waited until I had eaten more than half of my hamburger before I destroyed his artwork with my first French fry.
Well, since I was feeling so good — yes, maybe even jolly — with my new happy face mood, I decided I would not spoil it by doing any more shopping. So I went out into the parking lot to cuss out some fellow sorry excuses-for-parkers. By the way, to keep in the holiday spirit, I did cuss them out to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
Then I went home. And I told Marge about my happy face Santa ketchup moment, and she lovingly said, “Hmm? I didn’t think you were gay.” And then I told her about the Brookstone and Sharper Image episodes, and I couldn’t believe what she said next. My sometimes-loving wife was about to Charlie Brown my Christmas butt.
She said, “I hope you didn’t buy that Remote Control Thermometer thing.”
I said, “Yes, I bought it. I humiliated myself. I have it. Right here!”
And she said, “Well, Honey Pumpkin Poo Poo, I didn’t think you would really get it, so I bought one, too.”
I could not believe it. She had pulled a Lucy on me. Just when I was kicking that barbecued football remote, she pulled it back. She told me to go buy it. I bought it. Then she buys it herself. And I’m left holding the thermometer. Charlie and I are going to go get loaded.
Well, Merry Christmas everybody! I would just like to leave you with my new favorite Christmas hymn. I can hear it now. The soft female chorus voices. The haunting organ music in the background. “Give a, give a, give a, give a, give a Garmin. Garmin dot com. Garmin dot com.”
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A Room With a Different View (Cigar Smoke 12-13-07)
As you probably would guess by my being just to the right of Newt Gingrich politically, I am generally opposed to socialized medicine in the United States. Basically, that’s because I am opposed to socialism period. It’s been proven to fail everywhere it’s been tried, and I just don’t like the idea of people who don’t work getting the benefits of people who do.
But this isn’t a column on socialism, per se. This is a column about one semi-creaky old turkey’s actual real-life experience with socialized medicine. And you might just be surprised at my conclusions.
In a recent column I told you about my being taken off a cruise ship in New Zealand with some heart problems. (I had the heart problems. New Zealand’s heart is fine.) And, although I know you want to hear even more about my medical condition, I am not going to go there. Children may be reading this column.
What I am going to tell you about is my treatment in a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand. And obviously, New Zealand is a socialized medicine country. Nobody pays for medical care over there. It is free to everyone. You just go in, get your appendix snipped out, and you leave. No invoice. No itemization. No wallet-whining. No nothing.
So I get hauled into the hospital and they drop me off at the emergency place. The care was great. A doctor and nurses were right there. They were terrific. Very attentive and friendly and fast, and more importantly, seemed to be very competent and professional. And there was no paperwork for insurance or any of that. Couldn’t have been better.
Then, because I had been on the cruise ship, they took me to their anti-contagion unit. I am not kidding. If you come from a foreign country, they stick you here first. Not that it was a bad place. Au contraire (that’s French for something commie), it was a great room. And it was a private room. No other socialist sucking people to bother me. Even had a nice view. I had no complaints. I wanted to complain. I enjoy complaining. But I couldn’t. So I didn’t.
I stayed in this private room for five days. I guess I had a particularly scary brand of cooties. I didn’t feel contagious. I don’t think I looked contagious. And, as far as I know, they never specifically looked for evidence of my contagion. But it did take them five days to not find anything. But hey, I had a private room, so me and my heart weren’t in any hurry to move.
And because I am a journalist, I want to report to you that the rooms in this socialistic country were pretty good. They weren’t all high-teched out with modern equipment, and there were no TVs. But they were very homey. Homey is the right word, I think. I thought I was back in the 1950s. The room just had a nice warm feeling about it. Very comfortable, country pictures on the walls, other pictures drawn with crayons by kids. They had none of that overly clean and antiseptic look that we have over here.
And the nurses were just fabulous. They were friendly and they joked with me about my hairy chest (oh, the fun we had). They thought I was trying to smuggle in chimpanzees under the covers. They were kidders (the nurses, not the damn chimps). And one of the nurses helped me get extra food to maintain my lanky body requirements. OK, it was just some kind of pissy yogurt or a box of corn flakes, but I appreciated the collusion. One time I got two desserts and tried to jump out of bed to hug my nurse and I pulled all my heart wires out. She said, “Oh, just lie down. I’ll put the wires back in the chimpanzee.” And we laughed. Oh, how we laughed.
And while I was there for the five days I got all the modern tests — I had an MRI and EKGs and this procedure where they put this mini camera up a vein in your thigh and it takes little photos of your heart and puts them on You Tube or something, and all the other tests that heart guys get. The doctor came by twice a day. I thought I had great care. What can I say? I wanted to not like the socialistic system of medical care, but I liked it. I’m not saying I’m voting for Hillary, but the system worked pretty well, I have to admit.
Then after five days, they determined I was contagion-free, so they shipped me off to the riff raff room. I was now in the kind of room that the regular Kiwi people had. It was an OK room, but it had eight guys in there. All heart patients. And I asked them all how they liked their medical system, and they basically said it was pretty good. Except that they had to wait for long periods of time to have operations. Months. And then they would have to come into the hospital early and stay, maybe three weeks, before the actual operation. If they left, they would lose their place. That didn’t sound good to this old non-commie cowboy.
And, of course, New Zealand only has four million people. That’s like the population of the city of Los Angeles. What’s our population now in the US? More than 300 million? So, maybe their system is a little more workable, eh? (I thought I’d add a little Canadian socialized medical commentary.)
And finally, although the care was great for me, it was not free for me. Because I was a foreigner, and not a Kiwi, I had to pay the full, excuse the expression, boat. Yes, they would not pay for any alien medical care — legal or illegal.
My conclusion: I’m just grateful they didn’t find any cooties. I hear the wait for cooties removal is three months.
But this isn’t a column on socialism, per se. This is a column about one semi-creaky old turkey’s actual real-life experience with socialized medicine. And you might just be surprised at my conclusions.
In a recent column I told you about my being taken off a cruise ship in New Zealand with some heart problems. (I had the heart problems. New Zealand’s heart is fine.) And, although I know you want to hear even more about my medical condition, I am not going to go there. Children may be reading this column.
What I am going to tell you about is my treatment in a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand. And obviously, New Zealand is a socialized medicine country. Nobody pays for medical care over there. It is free to everyone. You just go in, get your appendix snipped out, and you leave. No invoice. No itemization. No wallet-whining. No nothing.
So I get hauled into the hospital and they drop me off at the emergency place. The care was great. A doctor and nurses were right there. They were terrific. Very attentive and friendly and fast, and more importantly, seemed to be very competent and professional. And there was no paperwork for insurance or any of that. Couldn’t have been better.
Then, because I had been on the cruise ship, they took me to their anti-contagion unit. I am not kidding. If you come from a foreign country, they stick you here first. Not that it was a bad place. Au contraire (that’s French for something commie), it was a great room. And it was a private room. No other socialist sucking people to bother me. Even had a nice view. I had no complaints. I wanted to complain. I enjoy complaining. But I couldn’t. So I didn’t.
I stayed in this private room for five days. I guess I had a particularly scary brand of cooties. I didn’t feel contagious. I don’t think I looked contagious. And, as far as I know, they never specifically looked for evidence of my contagion. But it did take them five days to not find anything. But hey, I had a private room, so me and my heart weren’t in any hurry to move.
And because I am a journalist, I want to report to you that the rooms in this socialistic country were pretty good. They weren’t all high-teched out with modern equipment, and there were no TVs. But they were very homey. Homey is the right word, I think. I thought I was back in the 1950s. The room just had a nice warm feeling about it. Very comfortable, country pictures on the walls, other pictures drawn with crayons by kids. They had none of that overly clean and antiseptic look that we have over here.
And the nurses were just fabulous. They were friendly and they joked with me about my hairy chest (oh, the fun we had). They thought I was trying to smuggle in chimpanzees under the covers. They were kidders (the nurses, not the damn chimps). And one of the nurses helped me get extra food to maintain my lanky body requirements. OK, it was just some kind of pissy yogurt or a box of corn flakes, but I appreciated the collusion. One time I got two desserts and tried to jump out of bed to hug my nurse and I pulled all my heart wires out. She said, “Oh, just lie down. I’ll put the wires back in the chimpanzee.” And we laughed. Oh, how we laughed.
And while I was there for the five days I got all the modern tests — I had an MRI and EKGs and this procedure where they put this mini camera up a vein in your thigh and it takes little photos of your heart and puts them on You Tube or something, and all the other tests that heart guys get. The doctor came by twice a day. I thought I had great care. What can I say? I wanted to not like the socialistic system of medical care, but I liked it. I’m not saying I’m voting for Hillary, but the system worked pretty well, I have to admit.
Then after five days, they determined I was contagion-free, so they shipped me off to the riff raff room. I was now in the kind of room that the regular Kiwi people had. It was an OK room, but it had eight guys in there. All heart patients. And I asked them all how they liked their medical system, and they basically said it was pretty good. Except that they had to wait for long periods of time to have operations. Months. And then they would have to come into the hospital early and stay, maybe three weeks, before the actual operation. If they left, they would lose their place. That didn’t sound good to this old non-commie cowboy.
And, of course, New Zealand only has four million people. That’s like the population of the city of Los Angeles. What’s our population now in the US? More than 300 million? So, maybe their system is a little more workable, eh? (I thought I’d add a little Canadian socialized medical commentary.)
And finally, although the care was great for me, it was not free for me. Because I was a foreigner, and not a Kiwi, I had to pay the full, excuse the expression, boat. Yes, they would not pay for any alien medical care — legal or illegal.
My conclusion: I’m just grateful they didn’t find any cooties. I hear the wait for cooties removal is three months.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
On the Horns of a Double-Fandango Dilemma (Cigar Smoke 12-6-07)
I was in my doctor’s office the other day reading the April 1972 issue of Popular Mechanics in which they predicted we would all be flying around in our own little personal flying machines by the year 2000. Very interesting article. The same issue had the global-cooling prediction story. Those guys were dead on, huh?
Anyway, I finished that magazine and noticed a current copy of Newsweek in the magazine rack. I don’t know how a 2007 magazine got into a doctor’s office. I think a senile patient brought it in and forgot it. (Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being senile. I’m senile. All my friends are senile. We like being senile. At least, we think we like being senile. We forgot what it means.)
This is where my double-fandango dilemma started. The first horn of my dilemma was that I had canceled my subscription to Newsweek when it published that phony, hyped-up story about our Guantanamo guys peeing on the Koran. (By the way, my cancelation rocked Newsweek’s financial world.) If a person cancels a subscription to a magazine, should that person read that magazine in a doctor’s waiting room? It is a dilemma.
Somehow, it just seems wrong to me to read a free article that you used to pay for. If you have lost respect for a publication and have stopped buying that magazine, why should you read one of its articles just because you have the opportunity to do it and it won’t cost you anything? What are you going to say to yourself? “Self, that sure was a thoughtful, well-written story from a publication I have lost respect for. I got a lot out of it only because I didn’t have to pay for it. Ha, ha. I showed them.” Is that what you say to yourself? I don’t know. I think my self just might pee on me for that.
So what did I do? I read the article. Not because it was free, but because it was something I was interested in. And I have no standards or moral consistency and I’m weak. I think my fly’s open too.
The story was about Amazon’s new digital reading wonder-gadget called the Kindle. I happen to be interested in buying a Kindle. It’s the first wireless book-reading gizmo that allows you to instantly download books for $9.99, and Amazon has supposedly perfected the screen so it mimics an actual page of type in a book. They say you can read it at the beach with no glare. That’s pretty impressive. If those bullies would only stop kicking sand in my face, it would be perfect.
So I read half the article and found out some semi-cool stuff that the Kindle can do. It has a built-in dictionary and you can subscribe to magazines online and it doesn’t need to be synched to a computer, and it has little bitty legs and can walk to the store and pick up some Bud Light. It’s pretty neat.
But just at that exact halfway article-reading point, my doctor called me in. It was a checkup. He wanted to check to see if my wallet was still in good condition. So, in a split damn second, I jumped onto the other horn of my dilemma. (It hurt. I still have dilemma horn scars.) What should I do with the magazine? Should I just leave it and forget the rest of the Kindle article, or take it home?
My mind was racing. (My body turned that over to my mind years ago.) Would “taking home” the magazine mean I was stealing the magazine? Should I ask the receptionist if I could take it home? Should I rip out only the pages I need? Should I go poo-poo in my pants from indecision?
I cleverly avoided my final decision by placing (hiding) the Newsweek in question between two health magazines that probably will never be read. In fact, people hope those magazines will be stolen. They hire people to steal them. It was the perfect place to just keep it hidden for half an hour until my appointment was over, and then I could make a reasoned and considered decision as to whether I would steal it.
I went in for my examination. My wallet was in top shape, so the doctor let me out. Told me to keep it full of hundreds and to see him as often as possible. “Thanks, doc. You ever fix dilemma scars?”
So I went back to the waiting room, and I looked both ways — I’m not sure why, maybe there were IRS agents or FBI guys — and I went over to the magazine rack and sneakily sorted through the pile and found my hidden copy of Newsweek still there. I had it in my hand; I had to make my final decision. Was I going to steal this magazine from the doctor’s office? Was I going to steal a magazine I had stopped subscribing to? What kind of person am I?
So I made my decision. Holding the magazine in my hand, as I got to the door I said to another guy sitting in the waiting room, “It’s my magazine. I brought it with me.” I couldn’t believe I said it, but I did. And I said it loud enough that everyone in the waiting room could hear me. The guy by the door didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything. Nobody even nodded or smiled weakly. Nothing.
So, my sometime loyal readers and readerettes, what have we learned from this pissy little parable? We have learned that when you are on the horns of a double-fandango dilemma about stealing something, it is clearly best if you lie as well.
Anyway, I finished that magazine and noticed a current copy of Newsweek in the magazine rack. I don’t know how a 2007 magazine got into a doctor’s office. I think a senile patient brought it in and forgot it. (Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being senile. I’m senile. All my friends are senile. We like being senile. At least, we think we like being senile. We forgot what it means.)
This is where my double-fandango dilemma started. The first horn of my dilemma was that I had canceled my subscription to Newsweek when it published that phony, hyped-up story about our Guantanamo guys peeing on the Koran. (By the way, my cancelation rocked Newsweek’s financial world.) If a person cancels a subscription to a magazine, should that person read that magazine in a doctor’s waiting room? It is a dilemma.
Somehow, it just seems wrong to me to read a free article that you used to pay for. If you have lost respect for a publication and have stopped buying that magazine, why should you read one of its articles just because you have the opportunity to do it and it won’t cost you anything? What are you going to say to yourself? “Self, that sure was a thoughtful, well-written story from a publication I have lost respect for. I got a lot out of it only because I didn’t have to pay for it. Ha, ha. I showed them.” Is that what you say to yourself? I don’t know. I think my self just might pee on me for that.
So what did I do? I read the article. Not because it was free, but because it was something I was interested in. And I have no standards or moral consistency and I’m weak. I think my fly’s open too.
The story was about Amazon’s new digital reading wonder-gadget called the Kindle. I happen to be interested in buying a Kindle. It’s the first wireless book-reading gizmo that allows you to instantly download books for $9.99, and Amazon has supposedly perfected the screen so it mimics an actual page of type in a book. They say you can read it at the beach with no glare. That’s pretty impressive. If those bullies would only stop kicking sand in my face, it would be perfect.
So I read half the article and found out some semi-cool stuff that the Kindle can do. It has a built-in dictionary and you can subscribe to magazines online and it doesn’t need to be synched to a computer, and it has little bitty legs and can walk to the store and pick up some Bud Light. It’s pretty neat.
But just at that exact halfway article-reading point, my doctor called me in. It was a checkup. He wanted to check to see if my wallet was still in good condition. So, in a split damn second, I jumped onto the other horn of my dilemma. (It hurt. I still have dilemma horn scars.) What should I do with the magazine? Should I just leave it and forget the rest of the Kindle article, or take it home?
My mind was racing. (My body turned that over to my mind years ago.) Would “taking home” the magazine mean I was stealing the magazine? Should I ask the receptionist if I could take it home? Should I rip out only the pages I need? Should I go poo-poo in my pants from indecision?
I cleverly avoided my final decision by placing (hiding) the Newsweek in question between two health magazines that probably will never be read. In fact, people hope those magazines will be stolen. They hire people to steal them. It was the perfect place to just keep it hidden for half an hour until my appointment was over, and then I could make a reasoned and considered decision as to whether I would steal it.
I went in for my examination. My wallet was in top shape, so the doctor let me out. Told me to keep it full of hundreds and to see him as often as possible. “Thanks, doc. You ever fix dilemma scars?”
So I went back to the waiting room, and I looked both ways — I’m not sure why, maybe there were IRS agents or FBI guys — and I went over to the magazine rack and sneakily sorted through the pile and found my hidden copy of Newsweek still there. I had it in my hand; I had to make my final decision. Was I going to steal this magazine from the doctor’s office? Was I going to steal a magazine I had stopped subscribing to? What kind of person am I?
So I made my decision. Holding the magazine in my hand, as I got to the door I said to another guy sitting in the waiting room, “It’s my magazine. I brought it with me.” I couldn’t believe I said it, but I did. And I said it loud enough that everyone in the waiting room could hear me. The guy by the door didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything. Nobody even nodded or smiled weakly. Nothing.
So, my sometime loyal readers and readerettes, what have we learned from this pissy little parable? We have learned that when you are on the horns of a double-fandango dilemma about stealing something, it is clearly best if you lie as well.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Five-Card Stud (Cigar Smoke 11-29-07)
A few months ago, after watching poker on TV and seeing these turkeys win hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, with the turn of a card, I decided I would become a poker player. How hard could it be? Just a bunch of guys sitting around a table trying to outsmart each other and waste time, and maybe have a few beverages while you’re doing that heavy outsmarting work. I thought I could do that.
So I set out to become a poker phenom. I think you can still be a phenom if you’re old enough to be the grandfather of the current crop of phenoms. And it’s not illegal or immoral or fattening. Yes, I would become a phenom. I thought: “All I need is an edge.” Once I had that edge I would become wealthy, cool and, excuse the expression, a poker five-card stud.
I already had the wasting time part down and the drinking beverages part down pretty good, so to get that edge I decided to read everything I could on poker. And I did. I read eight books, starting out with “Texas Hold’em for Dummies,” which was an obvious choice. Then when I became less dumb, I read “Hold’em Wisdom for All Players” by my favorite TV poker player, Daniel Negreanu. Then it was “Million Dollar Hold’em Limit Cash Games,” followed by “52 Great Poker Tips” (it turns out I needed the 53rd tip, but who knew at the time).
Then I got even more serious and hit the heavier stuff. No, not the beverages, the books. I read the “Book of Bluffs” and “Hunting Fish” and “The Virgin Guide to Poker” and finally “The Tao of Poker.”
Now armed with the conflicting clutter of expert instant info, I started out on my road to becoming a poker phenom. And not just any phenom. I would become a rich, wise, bluffing, fishy, taoistically non-dummy phenom. Who, by the way, was a virgin. (For all you young kids out there reading this, I don’t think the virgin part was necessary.)
Before I used this new sure-fire poker knowledge at a real poker table with real poker players playing for real money, I decided to go online to get a little experience under my Mr. Big and Tall belt. So I checked out Full-Tilt Poker online. That seemed to be where the action was. They said you had to have only two qualities to join. I said, “Uh, which two?” They said you 1) have to be delusional, and 2) have a lot of money. I said, “Deal me in.”
I started out at the dollar table and did pretty well. I was actually up 300 bucks. Well on my way to being a poker phenom. Then things kind of evened out. I spent maybe three nights a week hiding in my home office after Marge went to bed, firing up the computer and hitting the online felt. Mostly I enjoyed it. I loved how the cards looked on the fake tables, and all the players used Avatars to represent themselves, and I was addicted to the little clicking sounds to get cards and make bets, and the sucking-in-the-money-sound when you won. (Every once in a while Marge would hear me yelling “Yes!” and open the door and say, “Are you having orgasms without me?” No, she didn’t say that, she said, “What are you doing?” and after I hit the boss button I would tell her I was researching our retirement program so we would have enough money to give to MoveOn.org.)
Well, as you have probably guessed, the poker tides eventually turned and I was caught up The River without a puddle. Yes, I started to lose. I gave back the $300 I had won, and then lost another $300. So then I had to deposit more money into my Full-Tilt account and I put in $500 more. And, after a month of online poker pissing matches, flame-throwing chat-line exchanges, incredible bad beats and David Letterman luck that I wouldn’t give to a monkey on a rock, I dropped that $500, too. So I was down a total of $1,100.
Now, $1,100 isn’t all that much money. I mean, yes, it’s money, but I could rationalize it away. It was a hobby. I wasn’t golfing anymore. I was paying the rent and baby was getting fed. I wasn’t a gambler. I was a poker phenom, dammit. I didn’t spend money on expensive hookers or that kind of thing.
So, I said to myself, I’m going to make one last run. I put another $600 into the pot. The little computer message said, “Are you sure, dumbass?” I said I was sure and something about kicking someone else’s dumbass. The computer said, “Who are you calling a dumbass? “ I said, “I’m calling you a dumbass, you dumbass!” The computer said, “Your $600 has been accepted. Good luck, dumbass.”
So, going against all my poker book advice, I started to chase my money. That means you make larger bets to get back the money you lost earlier. I went to the $2 tables. And I did pretty well. For more than 10 minutes. Damn good. Then I lost. Then I won. Then I lost. Then I lost and I didn’t win. Then I kept losing. Then I killed myself. Then I came back to life. Then I bet again. And I lost.
Finally, to make a long story obvious, I literally and figuratively and virtually and virginally had my entire 600 bucks riding on one hand. I could not lose. I had a straight flush. The 2-3-4-5-6 of hearts. The 2 and 3 in my hand, the 4-5-6 in community cards. The only hand that could beat it was a Royal Flush. Which was impossible to have!
Your poker phenom was wrong. There was another hand that could dampen my hopes, my dreams, and my shorts. Some non-dumbass guy had another straight flush, a higher straight flush. He had 4-5-6-7-8 of hearts. He was holding the 7 and 8 of hearts!
Hey, I learned my lesson. I got a new book — “The Tao of Stud Virginity for Suck Ugly Beyond Belief Stupid Money-Wasting Glory-Chasing Wannabe Phenoms.”
I’m halfway through it now. I’ll be back.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
So I set out to become a poker phenom. I think you can still be a phenom if you’re old enough to be the grandfather of the current crop of phenoms. And it’s not illegal or immoral or fattening. Yes, I would become a phenom. I thought: “All I need is an edge.” Once I had that edge I would become wealthy, cool and, excuse the expression, a poker five-card stud.
I already had the wasting time part down and the drinking beverages part down pretty good, so to get that edge I decided to read everything I could on poker. And I did. I read eight books, starting out with “Texas Hold’em for Dummies,” which was an obvious choice. Then when I became less dumb, I read “Hold’em Wisdom for All Players” by my favorite TV poker player, Daniel Negreanu. Then it was “Million Dollar Hold’em Limit Cash Games,” followed by “52 Great Poker Tips” (it turns out I needed the 53rd tip, but who knew at the time).
Then I got even more serious and hit the heavier stuff. No, not the beverages, the books. I read the “Book of Bluffs” and “Hunting Fish” and “The Virgin Guide to Poker” and finally “The Tao of Poker.”
Now armed with the conflicting clutter of expert instant info, I started out on my road to becoming a poker phenom. And not just any phenom. I would become a rich, wise, bluffing, fishy, taoistically non-dummy phenom. Who, by the way, was a virgin. (For all you young kids out there reading this, I don’t think the virgin part was necessary.)
Before I used this new sure-fire poker knowledge at a real poker table with real poker players playing for real money, I decided to go online to get a little experience under my Mr. Big and Tall belt. So I checked out Full-Tilt Poker online. That seemed to be where the action was. They said you had to have only two qualities to join. I said, “Uh, which two?” They said you 1) have to be delusional, and 2) have a lot of money. I said, “Deal me in.”
I started out at the dollar table and did pretty well. I was actually up 300 bucks. Well on my way to being a poker phenom. Then things kind of evened out. I spent maybe three nights a week hiding in my home office after Marge went to bed, firing up the computer and hitting the online felt. Mostly I enjoyed it. I loved how the cards looked on the fake tables, and all the players used Avatars to represent themselves, and I was addicted to the little clicking sounds to get cards and make bets, and the sucking-in-the-money-sound when you won. (Every once in a while Marge would hear me yelling “Yes!” and open the door and say, “Are you having orgasms without me?” No, she didn’t say that, she said, “What are you doing?” and after I hit the boss button I would tell her I was researching our retirement program so we would have enough money to give to MoveOn.org.)
Well, as you have probably guessed, the poker tides eventually turned and I was caught up The River without a puddle. Yes, I started to lose. I gave back the $300 I had won, and then lost another $300. So then I had to deposit more money into my Full-Tilt account and I put in $500 more. And, after a month of online poker pissing matches, flame-throwing chat-line exchanges, incredible bad beats and David Letterman luck that I wouldn’t give to a monkey on a rock, I dropped that $500, too. So I was down a total of $1,100.
Now, $1,100 isn’t all that much money. I mean, yes, it’s money, but I could rationalize it away. It was a hobby. I wasn’t golfing anymore. I was paying the rent and baby was getting fed. I wasn’t a gambler. I was a poker phenom, dammit. I didn’t spend money on expensive hookers or that kind of thing.
So, I said to myself, I’m going to make one last run. I put another $600 into the pot. The little computer message said, “Are you sure, dumbass?” I said I was sure and something about kicking someone else’s dumbass. The computer said, “Who are you calling a dumbass? “ I said, “I’m calling you a dumbass, you dumbass!” The computer said, “Your $600 has been accepted. Good luck, dumbass.”
So, going against all my poker book advice, I started to chase my money. That means you make larger bets to get back the money you lost earlier. I went to the $2 tables. And I did pretty well. For more than 10 minutes. Damn good. Then I lost. Then I won. Then I lost. Then I lost and I didn’t win. Then I kept losing. Then I killed myself. Then I came back to life. Then I bet again. And I lost.
Finally, to make a long story obvious, I literally and figuratively and virtually and virginally had my entire 600 bucks riding on one hand. I could not lose. I had a straight flush. The 2-3-4-5-6 of hearts. The 2 and 3 in my hand, the 4-5-6 in community cards. The only hand that could beat it was a Royal Flush. Which was impossible to have!
Your poker phenom was wrong. There was another hand that could dampen my hopes, my dreams, and my shorts. Some non-dumbass guy had another straight flush, a higher straight flush. He had 4-5-6-7-8 of hearts. He was holding the 7 and 8 of hearts!
Hey, I learned my lesson. I got a new book — “The Tao of Stud Virginity for Suck Ugly Beyond Belief Stupid Money-Wasting Glory-Chasing Wannabe Phenoms.”
I’m halfway through it now. I’ll be back.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Friday, November 23, 2007
A Walk in the Park (Cigar Smoke 11/22/07)
As a service to all you readers out there, I’m going to tell you about places to walk your dog, a different place for every day of the week. And there will be no charge. So, you’re reading the Pasadena Weekly, a free paper, and you’re getting priceless dog park info for free. Let’s face it: at best you’re cheapskates; at worst, you’re commies.
I’ve been taking Hadley, my Airedale, for a walk every day for over nine years. We basically go to these seven places: Brookside Park, Santa Anita Park, the Fly-Casting Pond, Victory Park, Farnsworth Park, Hahamonga Cayabonga Gungadin Fake Reservoir Wild-Ass Overgrown Pseudo Wetlands Equine Park and the Santa Fe Dam.
Usually, we get in the car, and I say, “Hadley, you weasel, where do you want to go today?” And Hadley says, “One of the seven damn places we always go.” So, when he’s like that, I take him to Brookside Park, by the Rose Bowl. Probably the best all around dog-walking spot. Hadley loves to stop and sniff. He doesn’t like to actually walk. He would rather stop and sniff anything all day than walk 50 straight-ass yards with his nice owner.
What you might see at Brookside is the Crazed Mothers Run-Pushing Their Babies in Strollers Club of Pasadena; old people (my age people) in the pool wearing bathing suits popular in 1945 doing water exercises in sync with a boom box version of Deep in the Heart of Texas; a hairy shirtless guy emerging from beneath a picnic table requesting a donation to his wine fund; or maybe three busloads of little darlings attacking the Children’s Museum. Hey, it’s better than a UCLA game.
Sometimes we go to Santa Anita Park over in Arcadia. Just take the 210 east to Santa Anita and hang a right. Go a few blocks. It’s just kitty-corner from the only Denny’s in the world that has a 1400-foot windmill on top of it. I think it fell from Denmark. The best part is that it’s right next to a golf course and you can brush up on new obscene phrases for a slice or a yank hook. If golf doesn’t float your putter (is that dirty?) then you can watch bad tennis players, or lawn bowlers. Or if you don’t like sports at all, you can watch the Chinese Red-and-White-Clad Chanters and Reachers to the Sky. Try not to go on a Saturday. They usually have some big dog show. Don’t tell Hadley.
Another really cool place is the Fly-Casting Pond on the Arroyo. It’s kind of hard to find, if you’re not, like me, a born finder. Just take the eastern side of the Arroyo under Suicide Bridge, swerve by the bodies, and it’s about a mile down the road. It’s combined with a pretty neat archery layout, too.
Great place to walk your dog. Yes, it’s right next to the flood control channel, but it also has a neat little stream and a wilderness-like area that makes you feel, maybe two percent of the way that guy in “Into the Wild” felt. Your dog will love it there. My dog doesn’t give a shit. Just kidding. He likes it there, too. Especially the actual fly-casting pond.
You’re not supposed to let your dogs off leash, but if conditions are right, I do it — I’m a rebel. If there are no fisherman trainees out there casting hooks into each other’s ears, I let Hadley off leash and he just goes into the pond. It’s about dog-chest deep, full of pollywog remains and mossy slime and other crud. But it’s fun. Hadley likes it, too.
If I need to pretend I’m a good master but all I want to do is get the chore of walking a four-legged Airedalian Weasel out of the way, I go to either Victory Park next to Pasadena High School or Farnsworth Park up on Lake in Altadena. I’ve picked these two parks because, well, they’re close to where I live. If you don’t live where I live, and let’s keep it that way, then forget I mentioned them.
Hahamongna Watershed Park, over in La Cañada Flintridge, right by JPL, is kind of another world. Really. This is a semi-spooky place, baby. I usually park on the top level and then walk Hadley down the dirt path of death to a dark and damp destination. In about 10 minutes you are in some pretty ugly country. Hadley and I go way back into the gnarly overgrown brush and rocky areas. There are bones out there and coyotes and snakes and raccoon guts and non-classifiable crap. I’m sure Jimmy Hoffa’s out there somewhere. And you can hear this little undercurrent of almost human humming when the rapists are arguing with the child molesters as to where to attack the homeless guys. And then some young thing will come riding along on a horse. Yes, an equestrian will emerge! I am not kidding. You want to make a movie of all this. But you don’t have the time, the funding, or the talent to do it. And your dog is peeing on your foot.
Finally, there’s Santa Fe Dam. A little jewel of unexpected urban paradise. Beautiful lake, terrific view of the mountains, swans and ducks swimming and waddling, and the place is empty most of the year. I’d tell you more, but I have run out of space. Due to poor planning. And wordiness earlier. It’s not really all that close to Pasadena anyway. It’s in Irwindale. Hell with it.
Oops, gotta go. I left Hadley back in Hahamonga-cowabunga. He told me he could find Hoffa. He better.
I’ve been taking Hadley, my Airedale, for a walk every day for over nine years. We basically go to these seven places: Brookside Park, Santa Anita Park, the Fly-Casting Pond, Victory Park, Farnsworth Park, Hahamonga Cayabonga Gungadin Fake Reservoir Wild-Ass Overgrown Pseudo Wetlands Equine Park and the Santa Fe Dam.
Usually, we get in the car, and I say, “Hadley, you weasel, where do you want to go today?” And Hadley says, “One of the seven damn places we always go.” So, when he’s like that, I take him to Brookside Park, by the Rose Bowl. Probably the best all around dog-walking spot. Hadley loves to stop and sniff. He doesn’t like to actually walk. He would rather stop and sniff anything all day than walk 50 straight-ass yards with his nice owner.
What you might see at Brookside is the Crazed Mothers Run-Pushing Their Babies in Strollers Club of Pasadena; old people (my age people) in the pool wearing bathing suits popular in 1945 doing water exercises in sync with a boom box version of Deep in the Heart of Texas; a hairy shirtless guy emerging from beneath a picnic table requesting a donation to his wine fund; or maybe three busloads of little darlings attacking the Children’s Museum. Hey, it’s better than a UCLA game.
Sometimes we go to Santa Anita Park over in Arcadia. Just take the 210 east to Santa Anita and hang a right. Go a few blocks. It’s just kitty-corner from the only Denny’s in the world that has a 1400-foot windmill on top of it. I think it fell from Denmark. The best part is that it’s right next to a golf course and you can brush up on new obscene phrases for a slice or a yank hook. If golf doesn’t float your putter (is that dirty?) then you can watch bad tennis players, or lawn bowlers. Or if you don’t like sports at all, you can watch the Chinese Red-and-White-Clad Chanters and Reachers to the Sky. Try not to go on a Saturday. They usually have some big dog show. Don’t tell Hadley.
Another really cool place is the Fly-Casting Pond on the Arroyo. It’s kind of hard to find, if you’re not, like me, a born finder. Just take the eastern side of the Arroyo under Suicide Bridge, swerve by the bodies, and it’s about a mile down the road. It’s combined with a pretty neat archery layout, too.
Great place to walk your dog. Yes, it’s right next to the flood control channel, but it also has a neat little stream and a wilderness-like area that makes you feel, maybe two percent of the way that guy in “Into the Wild” felt. Your dog will love it there. My dog doesn’t give a shit. Just kidding. He likes it there, too. Especially the actual fly-casting pond.
You’re not supposed to let your dogs off leash, but if conditions are right, I do it — I’m a rebel. If there are no fisherman trainees out there casting hooks into each other’s ears, I let Hadley off leash and he just goes into the pond. It’s about dog-chest deep, full of pollywog remains and mossy slime and other crud. But it’s fun. Hadley likes it, too.
If I need to pretend I’m a good master but all I want to do is get the chore of walking a four-legged Airedalian Weasel out of the way, I go to either Victory Park next to Pasadena High School or Farnsworth Park up on Lake in Altadena. I’ve picked these two parks because, well, they’re close to where I live. If you don’t live where I live, and let’s keep it that way, then forget I mentioned them.
Hahamongna Watershed Park, over in La Cañada Flintridge, right by JPL, is kind of another world. Really. This is a semi-spooky place, baby. I usually park on the top level and then walk Hadley down the dirt path of death to a dark and damp destination. In about 10 minutes you are in some pretty ugly country. Hadley and I go way back into the gnarly overgrown brush and rocky areas. There are bones out there and coyotes and snakes and raccoon guts and non-classifiable crap. I’m sure Jimmy Hoffa’s out there somewhere. And you can hear this little undercurrent of almost human humming when the rapists are arguing with the child molesters as to where to attack the homeless guys. And then some young thing will come riding along on a horse. Yes, an equestrian will emerge! I am not kidding. You want to make a movie of all this. But you don’t have the time, the funding, or the talent to do it. And your dog is peeing on your foot.
Finally, there’s Santa Fe Dam. A little jewel of unexpected urban paradise. Beautiful lake, terrific view of the mountains, swans and ducks swimming and waddling, and the place is empty most of the year. I’d tell you more, but I have run out of space. Due to poor planning. And wordiness earlier. It’s not really all that close to Pasadena anyway. It’s in Irwindale. Hell with it.
Oops, gotta go. I left Hadley back in Hahamonga-cowabunga. He told me he could find Hoffa. He better.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Uh, The World is Not on Fire (Cigar Smoke 11/15/07)
The Pasadena Weekly published a front-page story in the Nov. 1 issue headlined “World on Fire.” Well, I hate to tell Amy Goodman, her expert, Tim Flannery, and whoever wrote that headline, but the world does not seem to be on fire to me.
Here’s how I figure it: Oceans compose about 75 percent of Earth’s surface, so we can safely say that the oceans are not on fire. Then there are all the lakes and rivers and streams, etc., which probably aren’t on fire either. Let’s say the lakes and rivers conservatively cover five percent of Earth’s surface, so that makes at least 80 percent of the world that is not on fire.
The 20 percent of the remaining surface is made up of land. Out of that 20 percent, there were no significant fires in the Arctic, the Antarctic, Russia, China, India, Australia, Africa, Greenland, Iceland or Canada or anywhere else on the planet. That is not hyperbole. That is how it was.
As far as I know the only major fires were in Southern California, and only in San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. And the fires did not come close to burning those entire counties. They probably burned, at most, one percent of all five counties.
So now you have one percent of five counties in one state in the United States. The other 49 states do not have any alarming fires going on at this time. So, at most, and even this is quite a stretch, the percentage of the Earth’s surface which was on fire was about one one-thousandth of a percent. Not one percent; one-thousandth of one percent.
If you don’t agree with this, please tell me where my stats are wrong. I’m sincere. I haven’t thrown any anti-liberal bombs in this column. I haven’t used any swear words. I haven’t taken any cheap shots. I just want to have a discussion. So discuss. Sure, I’ve generalized about the percentage, but I think what I’ve said is basically correct. So tell me: Where am I wrong? Tell me what percentage of the world was on fire.
When the Weekly comes out and says on its front page, “World on Fire,” I have to speak up. And that nice little Earth illustration, tinged in red with the subtle red-type headline? Well, while those fires were going on, I was driving from California to Tucson and I did not see ONE fire in either state, not counting the broiler in Denny’s. And when I got back, alas, even Pasadena wasn’t on fire. The only thing that was on fire, it seems to me, was Amy Goodman’s incendiary prose. I guess the headline “One one-thousandth of one percent of the world on fire” just wasn’t quite punchy enough.
OK, now you’re going to say that what Amy really meant was kind of a metaphor. And you’re thinking I’m just a right-wing dummy who didn’t get her nuanced point. She really didn’t think that the entire world was on fire; she just wanted to point out how bad things were going in general and that global warming was probably a major determining factor in that badness, and a little exaggeration for a good cause is fine. Something like that, huh?
One of the things that Amy conveniently forgets to report is that at least four of the fires were caused by arson! Wow! That global warming even turns people into arsonists. That’s powerful stuff.
Oh, I almost forgot: Her expert, Tim Flannery, thinks global warming has caused all the fires AND the hurricanes and floods in New Orleans a couple of years ago AND the worldwide droughts. Now, that’s a pretty good trick. If the Earth’s atmosphere is too warm, it not only makes things warmer, it makes them wetter. And drier. Probably makes things lukewarm and chilly too.
You know, I’m a pretty old codger and I can remember when the hysteria about climate change was a deep concern that the planet was getting too cold! Back in the 1970s, Time or Newsweek ran a front-page story saying we were going to experience a new Ice Age, with a big picture of Earth frozen in ice. That was only 30 years ago. Now the world is on fire?
Let’s just assume that the water level in New York will rise in 100 years. Don’t you think by then we’ll have figured a way around it? Heck, Holland has already had that exact problem and has built an incredible system of dykes, canals and power plants. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. So hate me, hate the Discovery Channel.
And regarding the potential water shortage: Come on, now. If there ever was a life-or-death need for water, don’t you think we would figure out the desalinization process? We can take the salt out of water right now. It’s just generally too costly. If we had to do it for our survival, we could do it in a breeze — warm or cold.
I just wish all the global-warming people would take it down a notch or two. I tried to lower my volume. I didn’t throw any, excuse the expression, firebombs of bombassity. Let’s talk about it. Send me an email.
And remember, there are two “s”es in A-S-S-H-O-L-E.
Here’s how I figure it: Oceans compose about 75 percent of Earth’s surface, so we can safely say that the oceans are not on fire. Then there are all the lakes and rivers and streams, etc., which probably aren’t on fire either. Let’s say the lakes and rivers conservatively cover five percent of Earth’s surface, so that makes at least 80 percent of the world that is not on fire.
The 20 percent of the remaining surface is made up of land. Out of that 20 percent, there were no significant fires in the Arctic, the Antarctic, Russia, China, India, Australia, Africa, Greenland, Iceland or Canada or anywhere else on the planet. That is not hyperbole. That is how it was.
As far as I know the only major fires were in Southern California, and only in San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. And the fires did not come close to burning those entire counties. They probably burned, at most, one percent of all five counties.
So now you have one percent of five counties in one state in the United States. The other 49 states do not have any alarming fires going on at this time. So, at most, and even this is quite a stretch, the percentage of the Earth’s surface which was on fire was about one one-thousandth of a percent. Not one percent; one-thousandth of one percent.
If you don’t agree with this, please tell me where my stats are wrong. I’m sincere. I haven’t thrown any anti-liberal bombs in this column. I haven’t used any swear words. I haven’t taken any cheap shots. I just want to have a discussion. So discuss. Sure, I’ve generalized about the percentage, but I think what I’ve said is basically correct. So tell me: Where am I wrong? Tell me what percentage of the world was on fire.
When the Weekly comes out and says on its front page, “World on Fire,” I have to speak up. And that nice little Earth illustration, tinged in red with the subtle red-type headline? Well, while those fires were going on, I was driving from California to Tucson and I did not see ONE fire in either state, not counting the broiler in Denny’s. And when I got back, alas, even Pasadena wasn’t on fire. The only thing that was on fire, it seems to me, was Amy Goodman’s incendiary prose. I guess the headline “One one-thousandth of one percent of the world on fire” just wasn’t quite punchy enough.
OK, now you’re going to say that what Amy really meant was kind of a metaphor. And you’re thinking I’m just a right-wing dummy who didn’t get her nuanced point. She really didn’t think that the entire world was on fire; she just wanted to point out how bad things were going in general and that global warming was probably a major determining factor in that badness, and a little exaggeration for a good cause is fine. Something like that, huh?
One of the things that Amy conveniently forgets to report is that at least four of the fires were caused by arson! Wow! That global warming even turns people into arsonists. That’s powerful stuff.
Oh, I almost forgot: Her expert, Tim Flannery, thinks global warming has caused all the fires AND the hurricanes and floods in New Orleans a couple of years ago AND the worldwide droughts. Now, that’s a pretty good trick. If the Earth’s atmosphere is too warm, it not only makes things warmer, it makes them wetter. And drier. Probably makes things lukewarm and chilly too.
You know, I’m a pretty old codger and I can remember when the hysteria about climate change was a deep concern that the planet was getting too cold! Back in the 1970s, Time or Newsweek ran a front-page story saying we were going to experience a new Ice Age, with a big picture of Earth frozen in ice. That was only 30 years ago. Now the world is on fire?
Let’s just assume that the water level in New York will rise in 100 years. Don’t you think by then we’ll have figured a way around it? Heck, Holland has already had that exact problem and has built an incredible system of dykes, canals and power plants. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. So hate me, hate the Discovery Channel.
And regarding the potential water shortage: Come on, now. If there ever was a life-or-death need for water, don’t you think we would figure out the desalinization process? We can take the salt out of water right now. It’s just generally too costly. If we had to do it for our survival, we could do it in a breeze — warm or cold.
I just wish all the global-warming people would take it down a notch or two. I tried to lower my volume. I didn’t throw any, excuse the expression, firebombs of bombassity. Let’s talk about it. Send me an email.
And remember, there are two “s”es in A-S-S-H-O-L-E.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Something's on Fire! (Cigar Smoke 11-8-07)
I was in Dino Computer the other day and I’m standing there waiting for my Mac to be fixed and the tech guy behind the counter sniffs a couple of times and says to his cohort, “I think something is on fire.”
They both look around for awhile and then they start inching towards me and they get right next to me and one of the guys says to me, “It’s you.” I ask, “I’m on fire?” The guy nods. I say, “I know I’m hot, but probably not that hot.”
Yeah, you guessed it. They were smelling my smoky self. I don’t smoke that much, but when I do it’s often in my Durango. I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I have indulged in cigar smoking since I was about 15. More on that later. Now, I only smoke in my car or in my yard or in deserted weird places where nobody else goes.
To be fair, I know I smell like smoke a lot of the time, mostly when I’m awake. And my car smells pretty bad. Even I have to say that it can be a little unpleasant, say on a 97-degree day, and there are two years of smoke build-up embedded in the seat covers and cigar butts in the ashtray and little wet specks of spit-out tobacco stuck on the dash, and yuck, even I’m getting sick.
Sometimes my dog, Hadley, coughs when we get in the car to go for his morning walk. And then I light up a new cigar and he shies away from me. And I say, “Wanna go to the pound? I’m sure you’ll find a nice home.” Then he gets it together and sticks his head out the window looking for some pissy squirrel he can bark at.
Yes, society has conspired against me and they think I’m pretty mentally challenged to still smoke, but I tell them I’m like Bill Clinton — I don’t inhale. That’s right, I don’t inhale. Really. I just puff. I’m a puffer. Not a dragger. And society, of course, being considerate, tells me to puff on this. And preferably far away from them. I have no problem with that. I never did like to smoke around sissies anyway.
As I alluded to earlier, I started smoking cigars at the unripe old age of 15. I was in the Boy Scouts. Troop 588. Westchester. 1956. Yes, it’s been 50 years since I started smoking stogies. Half a century and I’m still here. Confounding cancer specialists. Irritating non-smokers and Airedales. It’s a rush.
My memory is a little hazy, kind of like my car interior, but I think the first time I had a RoiTan was on a camp-out up at Saugus. I was with my good ole buddy, Jim Ludwig, a Connie-driving fool, and patrol leader Don Yungkans, who decked Bob Williams one day when Bob got out of line. Literally out of line. Bob was supposed to be in a line. He wasn’t. One punch. Don nailed that sucker. I can still see it.
But most of all I remember my scout leader, John Rose. I think he was smoking his cheapie RoiTan and I asked him for one, and damned if he didn’t give it to me. That’s why we all loved that guy. He might have thought I was going to choke on it and cough and spit and sputter, but he was wrong. I liked it. Right from the first puff. And right then and there, 50 years ago, I made the decision not to inhale. I’m not sure why I did. I know it wasn’t because I was overly bright. I just said that’s the way it would be, and it has been. By the way, when I had my first cup of coffee, I decided to always have it black because I didn’t want to have to worry about finding cream and sugar. Still have it black. And the first time I had sex, I decided to some day have it with another person.
For some reason, I have always loved the smell of smoke. I remember when I was 20 and I was going off to Humboldt State College in Northern California. I drove my old Chevy coupe with the chrome gearshift knob up Highway 101 and when I got to some high place overlooking the Humboldt Valley I was just awestruck. Back in those days, there were no restrictions on lumber mills and the whole valley was filled with giant teepee-like structures and the smoke was coming out of all of them and the smell of smoke was just so perfect. God, did that smell good. It almost makes me cry. Ah, if I only had emotions.
I was going to tell you about smoking and my kids. But I’m not going to. Some commie-politician would figure out a way to throw me in the slammer. Even now. I will tell you this. Both of my kids, Mike and Casey, do not smoke. They’re both healthier and smarter than I am. And yes, I offered them a few cigars over the years but they’ve never taken me up on it. Hey, I still love ’em. Nobody’s perfect.
A couple of weekends ago I drove to Tucson for a Scrabble tournament. I could have flown but I love getting on the road and listening to some high-level country music (“Remember, the men buy the drinks, but the girls call the shots.” Yeehah.) I love that shit. But more than that, I just love to drive and chain smoke stogies. Just driving for hours and puffing and singing and opening that driver’s side window just an inch or so, and having the smoke shoot-ass out the window. Just sucks it out. Never open two windows at once. You lose all the sucking action. The smoke will have an identity crisis. It won’t know where to go. One window. One inch. Maximum suck.
I stopped at a Denny’s in Guacamole Springs or someplace, and I sat down at the counter and a waitress named Lori came over. Lori with an i. She said, “Hi, darlin.” I said, “My name is Jimi, with an i, and ‘Hi darlin’ back at you.” And then she said, “Boy, you sure smell good.”
You talk about being on fire.
They both look around for awhile and then they start inching towards me and they get right next to me and one of the guys says to me, “It’s you.” I ask, “I’m on fire?” The guy nods. I say, “I know I’m hot, but probably not that hot.”
Yeah, you guessed it. They were smelling my smoky self. I don’t smoke that much, but when I do it’s often in my Durango. I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I have indulged in cigar smoking since I was about 15. More on that later. Now, I only smoke in my car or in my yard or in deserted weird places where nobody else goes.
To be fair, I know I smell like smoke a lot of the time, mostly when I’m awake. And my car smells pretty bad. Even I have to say that it can be a little unpleasant, say on a 97-degree day, and there are two years of smoke build-up embedded in the seat covers and cigar butts in the ashtray and little wet specks of spit-out tobacco stuck on the dash, and yuck, even I’m getting sick.
Sometimes my dog, Hadley, coughs when we get in the car to go for his morning walk. And then I light up a new cigar and he shies away from me. And I say, “Wanna go to the pound? I’m sure you’ll find a nice home.” Then he gets it together and sticks his head out the window looking for some pissy squirrel he can bark at.
Yes, society has conspired against me and they think I’m pretty mentally challenged to still smoke, but I tell them I’m like Bill Clinton — I don’t inhale. That’s right, I don’t inhale. Really. I just puff. I’m a puffer. Not a dragger. And society, of course, being considerate, tells me to puff on this. And preferably far away from them. I have no problem with that. I never did like to smoke around sissies anyway.
As I alluded to earlier, I started smoking cigars at the unripe old age of 15. I was in the Boy Scouts. Troop 588. Westchester. 1956. Yes, it’s been 50 years since I started smoking stogies. Half a century and I’m still here. Confounding cancer specialists. Irritating non-smokers and Airedales. It’s a rush.
My memory is a little hazy, kind of like my car interior, but I think the first time I had a RoiTan was on a camp-out up at Saugus. I was with my good ole buddy, Jim Ludwig, a Connie-driving fool, and patrol leader Don Yungkans, who decked Bob Williams one day when Bob got out of line. Literally out of line. Bob was supposed to be in a line. He wasn’t. One punch. Don nailed that sucker. I can still see it.
But most of all I remember my scout leader, John Rose. I think he was smoking his cheapie RoiTan and I asked him for one, and damned if he didn’t give it to me. That’s why we all loved that guy. He might have thought I was going to choke on it and cough and spit and sputter, but he was wrong. I liked it. Right from the first puff. And right then and there, 50 years ago, I made the decision not to inhale. I’m not sure why I did. I know it wasn’t because I was overly bright. I just said that’s the way it would be, and it has been. By the way, when I had my first cup of coffee, I decided to always have it black because I didn’t want to have to worry about finding cream and sugar. Still have it black. And the first time I had sex, I decided to some day have it with another person.
For some reason, I have always loved the smell of smoke. I remember when I was 20 and I was going off to Humboldt State College in Northern California. I drove my old Chevy coupe with the chrome gearshift knob up Highway 101 and when I got to some high place overlooking the Humboldt Valley I was just awestruck. Back in those days, there were no restrictions on lumber mills and the whole valley was filled with giant teepee-like structures and the smoke was coming out of all of them and the smell of smoke was just so perfect. God, did that smell good. It almost makes me cry. Ah, if I only had emotions.
I was going to tell you about smoking and my kids. But I’m not going to. Some commie-politician would figure out a way to throw me in the slammer. Even now. I will tell you this. Both of my kids, Mike and Casey, do not smoke. They’re both healthier and smarter than I am. And yes, I offered them a few cigars over the years but they’ve never taken me up on it. Hey, I still love ’em. Nobody’s perfect.
A couple of weekends ago I drove to Tucson for a Scrabble tournament. I could have flown but I love getting on the road and listening to some high-level country music (“Remember, the men buy the drinks, but the girls call the shots.” Yeehah.) I love that shit. But more than that, I just love to drive and chain smoke stogies. Just driving for hours and puffing and singing and opening that driver’s side window just an inch or so, and having the smoke shoot-ass out the window. Just sucks it out. Never open two windows at once. You lose all the sucking action. The smoke will have an identity crisis. It won’t know where to go. One window. One inch. Maximum suck.
I stopped at a Denny’s in Guacamole Springs or someplace, and I sat down at the counter and a waitress named Lori came over. Lori with an i. She said, “Hi, darlin.” I said, “My name is Jimi, with an i, and ‘Hi darlin’ back at you.” And then she said, “Boy, you sure smell good.”
You talk about being on fire.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Ask Me a Question, Dammit! (Cigar Smoke 11-1-2007)
Now even my headlines are getting hostile. I’m sorry. I’ll try to calm down.
Here’s the deal. I don’t really consider myself a geek. I may be a kook, a psycho, a clueless person, a queueless person. I could be a dweeb, a flake, maybe even a nerd. But I am not a geek. But I am on the cusp of being a geek. I seek geekdom. I seek to know what cusp means.
In the early ’80s I did haul a Compaq portable computer that weighed 60 pounds back and forth from the office. My right arm is still three inches longer than my left arm, and I still walk tilted to the right, which kind of works with my political leanings. Also, I can run in circles really fast. But does hauling a Compaq make me a geek? I doubt it.
What is turning me into a semi-geek is simple: I bought a Palm Pilot and an iPhone. I bought the Palm Pilot about three months ago to help me with my feeble Scrabble game. But I did not know it would open up a new world of having fascinating, useless information at my fingertips. Then last week I was able to get an iPhone with my American Express premium points reward goodie. I just couldn’t resist. It was either that or six toasters.
So now I have complete Palm Pilot and iPhone access to everything I ever wanted to know and most things you wanted
to know. I have dictionaries, almanacs, programs on this, on that, utilities, special stuff I can’t tell you about or I’d have to marry you. I now have this information and I want to share it with you, my sometimes loyal audience. I not only want to share it, I need to share it. So ask me something. Ask me anything? Ask me a question, dammit!
For example, don’t you want to know what time it is in, say, Santiago? Well, it is 4:51 p.m. — depending on what time you asked me the question, of course. You want to know the population of Aruba? Well, do you? I’m telling you anyway. It’s 71,218. And do you want to know what the double hey hey a Burkina Faso is? I know you do. Don’t play coy-ass with me. It’s a freaking country, that’s what Burkina Faso is. If you had asked me what Burkina Faso was on “Jeopardy” I would have said, “What is a rash, Alex?” And it’s larger than Colorado! No, not the rash, the country.
Pretty impressive, huh? Damn straight. We’re not done yet. You want to ask me what the zip code of Mesquite, Texas, is. Ask me. Uh, wait one nano-second while I whip out my stylus … it’s 75181. That was tough. Mesquite, Nev. — 89024. Mesquite, NM — 88048. Oh, you want the area codes, too. 846, 345, 910. They don’t correspond to Mesquites, but you didn’t make that clear when you asked me. Shape up, huh.
Hey, this is the most fun I’ve had with my palm since I was in high school. Ask and you shall receive. Who said that? Jesus. I think it was him. And me. Ask me what the birthstone for January is. It’s garnet. What is the median price for a home in Akron, Ohio? It’s $116,900. Ask me what we’re paying professors to turn our kids into little commie parrots. $129,237. And they get summers off! No, not the parrots.
I think you can see what I have to offer in the question-answering game. It is just frosting my frijoles that nobody is asking me anything. I’m retired. I spend all day doing Palm Pilot/iPhone research for you slackers and you still don’t ask me anything. By the way, did you know that Apple stock is now worth $186 a share? How could you? You didn’t ask me. You know, I could have bought Apple at $17 a share. I am not kidding. And why didn’t I? Go ahead and ask me. Why didn’t you buy Apple at $17, Jim? Because Jim is a weak-assed, sniveling coward suckface who has shit for brains and never stands up for anything he believes in and deserves to die or, at least, be laughed at. That’s why. (Wow, I didn’t realize this would get so heavy. Do you know how many psychiatrists there are in California? I don’t either.)
I have to tell you one last story. I was out eating dinner at Cameron’s the other night with the little woman. (I hope Marge doesn’t find out.) And we just happened to overhear a large group of people eating next to us. There were eight people and they had just finished dinner and were looking at their check. And they were kind of fumbling around trying to figure out how much each person should pay.
Well, I was pretty damn happy. I whipped out my Palm T/X and I got into this little utility program that figures out restaurant bills. It figures in the taxes and calculates the tips at 10, 15, or 20 percent. It gives exactly what each person should pay. It’s beautiful.
So I said, “Uh, excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you guys discussing your check. And I took the liberty of using my little hand-held wizard here, (and I chuckled good naturedly) and I have figured out that each of you owes exactly $26.78 if you leave a 15 percent tip. How does that sound?”
And the big guy in the corduroy coat said, “It sounds as if you better mind your own frigging-ass business if you want to still stutter out of that yapping yap of yours, freak-face.” Well, he kind of pissed me off, so I didn’t give him the alternative figures for 10 or 20 percent. Screw him.
I just looked up the word geek on my Palm Pilot and I cross-referenced it with a dictionary on my iPhone and it says that there are two definitions. One is a circus guy who eats the heads off small animals and the other is a bore. I don’t eat the heads off anything. Hmm.
Here’s the deal. I don’t really consider myself a geek. I may be a kook, a psycho, a clueless person, a queueless person. I could be a dweeb, a flake, maybe even a nerd. But I am not a geek. But I am on the cusp of being a geek. I seek geekdom. I seek to know what cusp means.
In the early ’80s I did haul a Compaq portable computer that weighed 60 pounds back and forth from the office. My right arm is still three inches longer than my left arm, and I still walk tilted to the right, which kind of works with my political leanings. Also, I can run in circles really fast. But does hauling a Compaq make me a geek? I doubt it.
What is turning me into a semi-geek is simple: I bought a Palm Pilot and an iPhone. I bought the Palm Pilot about three months ago to help me with my feeble Scrabble game. But I did not know it would open up a new world of having fascinating, useless information at my fingertips. Then last week I was able to get an iPhone with my American Express premium points reward goodie. I just couldn’t resist. It was either that or six toasters.
So now I have complete Palm Pilot and iPhone access to everything I ever wanted to know and most things you wanted
to know. I have dictionaries, almanacs, programs on this, on that, utilities, special stuff I can’t tell you about or I’d have to marry you. I now have this information and I want to share it with you, my sometimes loyal audience. I not only want to share it, I need to share it. So ask me something. Ask me anything? Ask me a question, dammit!
For example, don’t you want to know what time it is in, say, Santiago? Well, it is 4:51 p.m. — depending on what time you asked me the question, of course. You want to know the population of Aruba? Well, do you? I’m telling you anyway. It’s 71,218. And do you want to know what the double hey hey a Burkina Faso is? I know you do. Don’t play coy-ass with me. It’s a freaking country, that’s what Burkina Faso is. If you had asked me what Burkina Faso was on “Jeopardy” I would have said, “What is a rash, Alex?” And it’s larger than Colorado! No, not the rash, the country.
Pretty impressive, huh? Damn straight. We’re not done yet. You want to ask me what the zip code of Mesquite, Texas, is. Ask me. Uh, wait one nano-second while I whip out my stylus … it’s 75181. That was tough. Mesquite, Nev. — 89024. Mesquite, NM — 88048. Oh, you want the area codes, too. 846, 345, 910. They don’t correspond to Mesquites, but you didn’t make that clear when you asked me. Shape up, huh.
Hey, this is the most fun I’ve had with my palm since I was in high school. Ask and you shall receive. Who said that? Jesus. I think it was him. And me. Ask me what the birthstone for January is. It’s garnet. What is the median price for a home in Akron, Ohio? It’s $116,900. Ask me what we’re paying professors to turn our kids into little commie parrots. $129,237. And they get summers off! No, not the parrots.
I think you can see what I have to offer in the question-answering game. It is just frosting my frijoles that nobody is asking me anything. I’m retired. I spend all day doing Palm Pilot/iPhone research for you slackers and you still don’t ask me anything. By the way, did you know that Apple stock is now worth $186 a share? How could you? You didn’t ask me. You know, I could have bought Apple at $17 a share. I am not kidding. And why didn’t I? Go ahead and ask me. Why didn’t you buy Apple at $17, Jim? Because Jim is a weak-assed, sniveling coward suckface who has shit for brains and never stands up for anything he believes in and deserves to die or, at least, be laughed at. That’s why. (Wow, I didn’t realize this would get so heavy. Do you know how many psychiatrists there are in California? I don’t either.)
I have to tell you one last story. I was out eating dinner at Cameron’s the other night with the little woman. (I hope Marge doesn’t find out.) And we just happened to overhear a large group of people eating next to us. There were eight people and they had just finished dinner and were looking at their check. And they were kind of fumbling around trying to figure out how much each person should pay.
Well, I was pretty damn happy. I whipped out my Palm T/X and I got into this little utility program that figures out restaurant bills. It figures in the taxes and calculates the tips at 10, 15, or 20 percent. It gives exactly what each person should pay. It’s beautiful.
So I said, “Uh, excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you guys discussing your check. And I took the liberty of using my little hand-held wizard here, (and I chuckled good naturedly) and I have figured out that each of you owes exactly $26.78 if you leave a 15 percent tip. How does that sound?”
And the big guy in the corduroy coat said, “It sounds as if you better mind your own frigging-ass business if you want to still stutter out of that yapping yap of yours, freak-face.” Well, he kind of pissed me off, so I didn’t give him the alternative figures for 10 or 20 percent. Screw him.
I just looked up the word geek on my Palm Pilot and I cross-referenced it with a dictionary on my iPhone and it says that there are two definitions. One is a circus guy who eats the heads off small animals and the other is a bore. I don’t eat the heads off anything. Hmm.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
I'm Queueless (Cigar Smoke 10-25-07)
Well, it’s nice to be back after a week off. Although I’m still trying to recover from the news that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace prize. I’ve witnessed a lot of disgusting things in my life, but that’s right up there. At least ole Al is in good company. Right there with Arafat and Carter and the United Nations. Now, there’s a trifecta of throwing up. I hear next year the Nobel is going to OJ.
OK, I’m getting off my political podium. And jumping on my mundane podium. It’s lower. Something has happened to me that I think may be the only time this has happened to anyone in the history of happenings. I do not have any movies in my Netflix queue. Yes, I am queueless.
First, a little background. Marge and I are pretty big movie fans. We see a lot of movies. Kind of like Britney Spears sees a lot of penises. We go to the show almost every Friday night. Usually, we go to the Pasadena Playhouse and see some art movie and get out and look at each other and say, “Quite meaningful and insightful and ground-breaking -- for a piece of shit movie.”
Then we go next door to Vroman’s and buy an armful of books and then go eat dinner at Coco’s and Marge says, “You know, that wasn’t very good.” And I, being a what, a great conversationalist, say, “Huh.”
Anyway, we see a lot of movies. And not only in the theater. We watch movies on TV. We TiVo movies. We watch DVDs. We even watch VHSs. We search for movies. We find good movies. We find bad movies. We watch all of them. But finally, when we couldn’t even find any acceptable bad movies, I suggested to Marge that we join Netflix. And Marge said, “What is Netflix?” And I said, “I don’t know, but it did win the Nobel Peace prize, so it must be good.”
Netflix, in case you’ve been living on Jupiter or in Barbara Boxer’s head for the past decade, is an online movie service that has, maybe, four billion movies in its database. They have movies classified by drama and comedy and romance and crime and action and sci-fi and horror and childrens (very similar to horror) and gay and lesbian and thrillers and something called blu-ray. I’m afraid to even look at what’s in the blu-ray section. Maybe it’s a movie about a guy named Ray who painted himself a color he couldn’t spell correctly. I don’t know. I don’t care.
And if that’s not enough choice, you can search in special categories like New Releases and Netflix Top 100, and Critics’ Picks and Award Winners. And believe me, I have looked. And we have found some good flicks. A lot of them. We have enjoyed our home movie experience. All in all, Netflix has been a pretty good deal. And I just love to get and send back movies in the mail. Really. Their system is slick. I love it.
You have all the movies you want in what they call an online queue. I call it a cue. Anyway, they send you two movies in two little cool envelopes and you open the envelope and take out your disk and then after your movie enjoyment is over and you’re wiping away your tears of pleasurable movie-going experience you return it in the same envelope and you don’t even have to put a stamp on it. And then they send you two more movies from your queue automatically. Wow! I think this idea will work. Send me money and we’ll start a business. Send me as much money as you can. Your kid can wait until next year for that operation. We have to act fast. I’ll be the idea man, you can take care of the details.
OK, the background is over. Now, for the nowground. (By the way, my spellchecker actually makes little beeping whimpering noises when I write a sentence like that last one. Ah, damn spellcheckers. Spyllchek this!) So I get this email message from Netflix central command headquarters the other day and it says, and I am not kidding here, “You do not have any movies in your queue!” Yes, with the exclamation point. These Netflix guys I can only assume are both incredulous and pissed. What right thinking American moviegoer would have an empty queue? What non-commie flick-appreciating person would do something like this? It is inconceivable. To them. And, I guess, to me.
I really felt kind of guilty. I was paying for something I wasn’t using. And with all their movie-choosing aids, I had failed them. I couldn’t even stoop to the lowest movie-deciding level possible and pick a documentary. Not even a fitness video. I could not find a movie to put in my queue. I was, indeed, queueless. Who knows, maybe at some point I would have had to send back fake empty envelopes, weighted with cardboard, to keep their system going.
I didn’t want it to come to that, so I asked Marge, “Say Honey Bunny Poo Poo Face, which movie would you like me to get from Netflix: Hot Fuzz, The Astronaut Farmer, or Freddie’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.” She said, “How about if you get They Shoot Husbands Don’t They?” I laughed to myself a laugh of the queueless, “Uh, don’t you mean horses?” Honey Poo Poo never answered that. She probably has a hearing problem.
Well, I don’t think I’ll always be queueless. I know there will be new movies made. And I know that I may have missed a few good movies. And I’m sure now that my queuelessness is outted, I’ll receive some good movie tips from you queued-in people, and I just remembered that I forgot to look for 300. How bad can a movie with 300 Greeks throwing scum-suckers off cliffs and sweaty stallions and wenches (sweaty or not) and a lot of screaming and swearing and quaffing of ale be?
I may be queueless but I’m not quaffless.
OK, I’m getting off my political podium. And jumping on my mundane podium. It’s lower. Something has happened to me that I think may be the only time this has happened to anyone in the history of happenings. I do not have any movies in my Netflix queue. Yes, I am queueless.
First, a little background. Marge and I are pretty big movie fans. We see a lot of movies. Kind of like Britney Spears sees a lot of penises. We go to the show almost every Friday night. Usually, we go to the Pasadena Playhouse and see some art movie and get out and look at each other and say, “Quite meaningful and insightful and ground-breaking -- for a piece of shit movie.”
Then we go next door to Vroman’s and buy an armful of books and then go eat dinner at Coco’s and Marge says, “You know, that wasn’t very good.” And I, being a what, a great conversationalist, say, “Huh.”
Anyway, we see a lot of movies. And not only in the theater. We watch movies on TV. We TiVo movies. We watch DVDs. We even watch VHSs. We search for movies. We find good movies. We find bad movies. We watch all of them. But finally, when we couldn’t even find any acceptable bad movies, I suggested to Marge that we join Netflix. And Marge said, “What is Netflix?” And I said, “I don’t know, but it did win the Nobel Peace prize, so it must be good.”
Netflix, in case you’ve been living on Jupiter or in Barbara Boxer’s head for the past decade, is an online movie service that has, maybe, four billion movies in its database. They have movies classified by drama and comedy and romance and crime and action and sci-fi and horror and childrens (very similar to horror) and gay and lesbian and thrillers and something called blu-ray. I’m afraid to even look at what’s in the blu-ray section. Maybe it’s a movie about a guy named Ray who painted himself a color he couldn’t spell correctly. I don’t know. I don’t care.
And if that’s not enough choice, you can search in special categories like New Releases and Netflix Top 100, and Critics’ Picks and Award Winners. And believe me, I have looked. And we have found some good flicks. A lot of them. We have enjoyed our home movie experience. All in all, Netflix has been a pretty good deal. And I just love to get and send back movies in the mail. Really. Their system is slick. I love it.
You have all the movies you want in what they call an online queue. I call it a cue. Anyway, they send you two movies in two little cool envelopes and you open the envelope and take out your disk and then after your movie enjoyment is over and you’re wiping away your tears of pleasurable movie-going experience you return it in the same envelope and you don’t even have to put a stamp on it. And then they send you two more movies from your queue automatically. Wow! I think this idea will work. Send me money and we’ll start a business. Send me as much money as you can. Your kid can wait until next year for that operation. We have to act fast. I’ll be the idea man, you can take care of the details.
OK, the background is over. Now, for the nowground. (By the way, my spellchecker actually makes little beeping whimpering noises when I write a sentence like that last one. Ah, damn spellcheckers. Spyllchek this!) So I get this email message from Netflix central command headquarters the other day and it says, and I am not kidding here, “You do not have any movies in your queue!” Yes, with the exclamation point. These Netflix guys I can only assume are both incredulous and pissed. What right thinking American moviegoer would have an empty queue? What non-commie flick-appreciating person would do something like this? It is inconceivable. To them. And, I guess, to me.
I really felt kind of guilty. I was paying for something I wasn’t using. And with all their movie-choosing aids, I had failed them. I couldn’t even stoop to the lowest movie-deciding level possible and pick a documentary. Not even a fitness video. I could not find a movie to put in my queue. I was, indeed, queueless. Who knows, maybe at some point I would have had to send back fake empty envelopes, weighted with cardboard, to keep their system going.
I didn’t want it to come to that, so I asked Marge, “Say Honey Bunny Poo Poo Face, which movie would you like me to get from Netflix: Hot Fuzz, The Astronaut Farmer, or Freddie’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.” She said, “How about if you get They Shoot Husbands Don’t They?” I laughed to myself a laugh of the queueless, “Uh, don’t you mean horses?” Honey Poo Poo never answered that. She probably has a hearing problem.
Well, I don’t think I’ll always be queueless. I know there will be new movies made. And I know that I may have missed a few good movies. And I’m sure now that my queuelessness is outted, I’ll receive some good movie tips from you queued-in people, and I just remembered that I forgot to look for 300. How bad can a movie with 300 Greeks throwing scum-suckers off cliffs and sweaty stallions and wenches (sweaty or not) and a lot of screaming and swearing and quaffing of ale be?
I may be queueless but I’m not quaffless.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
It's the Thought That Counts (10-18-2007)
A couple of weeks ago, I got up, I took my pills to keep the pharmaceutical industry executives high-fiving, and I sat down at the breakfast table. Marge was sitting across from me and I asked, “You come here often, baby?” She didn’t respond; she just kept reading her paper and eating her oatmeal. Hadley kind of dog-chuckled though.
Before long I took Hadley out to the Hemi for his daily walk. Because he’s older than I am (in dog years he’s 70), I have this ramp that we use to help him get into the van. So he ran up the ramp, and then, as soon as he got inside the van, he started to poop! Inside the van! I’m sorry to talk about oatmeal and poop in the same time frame, but that’s what he did. He started pooping.
So I started yelling. And I yelled and grabbed him and lifted him down to the driveway right in mid-poop. I couldn’t believe it. I know he’s getting old, but I was pretty ticked off. So I called him a bad dog, and an Airedale loser, and then to punish him, well, I had him stuffed. He really looks great. He doesn’t “come” very well, but man can he “stay.”
But I digress. By the way, what is the opposite of digress? Egress? Regress? Ungress? Gress? I just don’t know. And I don’t have time to look it up. And even if I had the time to look it up, I wouldn’t know where to go to look it up. And if you say I can just Google it, I’ll say “Google this!” I don’t know why I’m so hostile.
But to get back to the nondigression: After Hadley and I got back from our walk and before I had him stuffed, I was sitting at my computer. I went into my email account and found an email message from Barnes & Noble. They had this wonderful promo going: If I would buy $75 worth of books, I would get a free Itty Bitty Book Light — an $11 value.
How could I pass that up? It was almost Marge’s birthday and I thought she would love some books and especially love her very own Itty Bitty Book Light. Maybe I could have it monogrammed. Do any of your wives have a monogrammed Itty Bitty Book Light? No, I didn’t think so. And why don’t they? Because you guys don’t love your wives enough like some thoughtful gift-givers I know.
So I hit the button to buy the books and get the free Itty Bitty Book Light. Barnes & Noble said that the charge for the Itty Bitty Book Light would be deducted at the end of the transaction in checkout. I decided to get the $75 gift certificate and everything went fine in the checkout until I was ready to pay. And I noticed that the $11 charge for the you-know-what was still there.
I was a little concerned. But I went ahead and clicked the final purchase and I thought for sure the deduction for the free Itty Bitty Book Light would kick in. Well, like those penis enlargement ads, nothing happened. They charged my credit card for $86 plus shipping.
So I sent Barnes & Noble an email asking them why I was charged for the light. They responded that the offer wasn’t good for any gift certificate purchases. You had to actually buy books on the Internet.
Well, you know me. I’m a mild-mannered guy. I make Clark Kent look like Alec Baldwin. I know I have somewhat of a rep for getting mad, but I only get mad if I’ve been wronged, damnit. And I was wronged here. Really wronged. I was just happily sitting at my computer looking at my email and they, the Barnes & Less Than Noble people, asked me to spend $75. I didn’t go to them. I didn’t ask for a discount. They offered it. And they didn’t say anything about it only being good for online books and not for gift certificates. Nope. They bamboozled me. And I don’t like it. I can be bammed and I can be boozled, but just don’t ever bamboozle me.
Finally, I’m getting to the point of my column. On Marge’s birthday I gave her the gift certificate for the books and I gave her the Itty Bitty Book Light. She kind of liked the book gift certificate. She said it was very, uh, well, uh, personal and intimate. I felt good, even though I could hear a little retching sound in her throat.
Then I gave her the Itty Bitty Book Light and she opened it up and she looked at it and that’s about it. She just kept looking at it. She didn’t say anything; just stared at it. I said it was a light for her books. She could hook it onto the book itself and it would make light, at night, to help her read. She said, “Hmm. A book light.”
I said, “Is that all you have to say?” And she said, “I guess you couldn’t find that turquoise necklace, huh? “
And then I said the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life, and believe me, that is saying something. I said, “I thought you’d like the Itty Bitty Book Light more than the turquoise necklace.”
She just stared at me — kind of like that old mythical chick who turned some dude into stone. That kind of a look.
I said stonily, “You know, it’s the thought that counts.”
And I think she said, although it is hard to hear with stone ears, “Where does your thought come from? Your Itty Bitty Brain.”
Before long I took Hadley out to the Hemi for his daily walk. Because he’s older than I am (in dog years he’s 70), I have this ramp that we use to help him get into the van. So he ran up the ramp, and then, as soon as he got inside the van, he started to poop! Inside the van! I’m sorry to talk about oatmeal and poop in the same time frame, but that’s what he did. He started pooping.
So I started yelling. And I yelled and grabbed him and lifted him down to the driveway right in mid-poop. I couldn’t believe it. I know he’s getting old, but I was pretty ticked off. So I called him a bad dog, and an Airedale loser, and then to punish him, well, I had him stuffed. He really looks great. He doesn’t “come” very well, but man can he “stay.”
But I digress. By the way, what is the opposite of digress? Egress? Regress? Ungress? Gress? I just don’t know. And I don’t have time to look it up. And even if I had the time to look it up, I wouldn’t know where to go to look it up. And if you say I can just Google it, I’ll say “Google this!” I don’t know why I’m so hostile.
But to get back to the nondigression: After Hadley and I got back from our walk and before I had him stuffed, I was sitting at my computer. I went into my email account and found an email message from Barnes & Noble. They had this wonderful promo going: If I would buy $75 worth of books, I would get a free Itty Bitty Book Light — an $11 value.
How could I pass that up? It was almost Marge’s birthday and I thought she would love some books and especially love her very own Itty Bitty Book Light. Maybe I could have it monogrammed. Do any of your wives have a monogrammed Itty Bitty Book Light? No, I didn’t think so. And why don’t they? Because you guys don’t love your wives enough like some thoughtful gift-givers I know.
So I hit the button to buy the books and get the free Itty Bitty Book Light. Barnes & Noble said that the charge for the Itty Bitty Book Light would be deducted at the end of the transaction in checkout. I decided to get the $75 gift certificate and everything went fine in the checkout until I was ready to pay. And I noticed that the $11 charge for the you-know-what was still there.
I was a little concerned. But I went ahead and clicked the final purchase and I thought for sure the deduction for the free Itty Bitty Book Light would kick in. Well, like those penis enlargement ads, nothing happened. They charged my credit card for $86 plus shipping.
So I sent Barnes & Noble an email asking them why I was charged for the light. They responded that the offer wasn’t good for any gift certificate purchases. You had to actually buy books on the Internet.
Well, you know me. I’m a mild-mannered guy. I make Clark Kent look like Alec Baldwin. I know I have somewhat of a rep for getting mad, but I only get mad if I’ve been wronged, damnit. And I was wronged here. Really wronged. I was just happily sitting at my computer looking at my email and they, the Barnes & Less Than Noble people, asked me to spend $75. I didn’t go to them. I didn’t ask for a discount. They offered it. And they didn’t say anything about it only being good for online books and not for gift certificates. Nope. They bamboozled me. And I don’t like it. I can be bammed and I can be boozled, but just don’t ever bamboozle me.
Finally, I’m getting to the point of my column. On Marge’s birthday I gave her the gift certificate for the books and I gave her the Itty Bitty Book Light. She kind of liked the book gift certificate. She said it was very, uh, well, uh, personal and intimate. I felt good, even though I could hear a little retching sound in her throat.
Then I gave her the Itty Bitty Book Light and she opened it up and she looked at it and that’s about it. She just kept looking at it. She didn’t say anything; just stared at it. I said it was a light for her books. She could hook it onto the book itself and it would make light, at night, to help her read. She said, “Hmm. A book light.”
I said, “Is that all you have to say?” And she said, “I guess you couldn’t find that turquoise necklace, huh? “
And then I said the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life, and believe me, that is saying something. I said, “I thought you’d like the Itty Bitty Book Light more than the turquoise necklace.”
She just stared at me — kind of like that old mythical chick who turned some dude into stone. That kind of a look.
I said stonily, “You know, it’s the thought that counts.”
And I think she said, although it is hard to hear with stone ears, “Where does your thought come from? Your Itty Bitty Brain.”
Thursday, October 4, 2007
A Man of Good Will (10-4-2007)
Well, I haven’t been the victim of any new crimes lately. No mailbox smashings or laptop thefts to report. I was kind of hoping some slug would kidnap me or kick my dog or something, but nothing has happened. So, I don’t have a column idea.
Just kidding. As most of you know, I could write a thousand words about not writing a thousand words.
The other night I was getting ready to go to bed, and I was standing in front of my dresser, holding my stomach up so it wouldn’t fall on my toes, and damned if I couldn’t find my ratty robe. No, it wasn’t in one of my tummy folds. I knew it was on the dresser top but, alas, it was not alone. There were many sartorial companions sharing the dresser space: pants, shorts, tee shirts, bathing suits, sweat pants, plus a few towels and a half of a ham sandwich. (Marge is so sloppy.)
I finally found my robe. It was the piled on garment with the most holes and I could smell the hardened syrup. Anyway, Marge made a nice little suggestion, “Honey, you think you could maybe get rid of some of those old clothes if you still want to be married and have meals prepared for you and not have to live on the street, darling?” I got her drift. I’m a drifter.
The next day I went to work. No, not work like you guys go to, fake work like throwing out old sartorial stuff. First, of course, I took all the stuff off the dresser top. Threw it on the bed. Then I opened some drawers and pulled out, and I’m not exaggerating here, 42 tee shirts that I had collected from minor league baseball games and minor league hockey games and minor league country concerts. Shirts from Red Deer and Medicine Hat and Alaska and Georgia and Texas and one that had Merle Haggard on it shooting a commie and one from Brandon, Manitoba, and one from Regina, Saskatchewan, and if I keep going I’m going to cry. It’s too late. I’m sobbing. OK, I’m balling. Like a crybaby.
When I finally stopped blathering, I went into my closet to look for other contributions to take to The Good Will store. My closet, thinking I guess that I would be pleased, was stuffed. I had slacks from when I actually could buy belts at regular stores. I had slacks with 36-inch waist seizes. Antiques. It was unreal. I kept throwing things on the bed. It was like a mountain of cheap wool and polyester. People from trailer parks were at the door. It was kind of neat. I traded some old pants for a Jeff Foxworthy CD.
I put, excuse the expression, a ton of pants on the bed. And not only pants. I found old pairs of dress shoes and cowboy boots and lumberjack boots and work boots and pissy-little colored belts and sport coats that Marty Robbins wouldn’t wear and suits and jackets and sweaters and I kept stacking them on the bed. You talk about a mountain. Sir Hillary would have gotten a Sir Hernia climbing that peak.
So I said to Marge, “Margie Pargie Wargie, would you please put the stuff on the bed in my bad-daddy Hemi SUV?” And Marge said, “You want to hear a Tammy Wynette song? D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”
OK, so me and a buddy and his friend, Mr. Forklift, got that mountain of crap, I mean, donation items, into the SUV. And then, because I am what, I am a wonderful, caring human being, I drove down to the Good Will Store. You know, the one on the corner of Altadena Drive and Foothill. Right across the street from the biggest giant-ass Mobil gas station on earth and right next to the Just Tires store. That one. I would have gone to the little thrift shop place up in Altadena on Lake but I thought they might kill me behind the store when I opened the door and just bury my dead poorly dressed body under my own old clothes.
Anyway, I get to the Good Will Donation Center, and I go inside to donation headquarters and the guy comes out to help me unload, and I open the door and we start taking the clothes out, and he looks at a few of the items and he kind of pauses and finally says, “You know, sir, we like to give people clothes that will, uh, increase their feeling of self-esteem.”
I laughed to myself with kind of a “if you weren’t with this Good Will outfit I would probably whack your ass” laugh. Then I said, “Uh, well these clothes were good enough for me for forty years. You think maybe your needy sumbitches could lower themselves just a tad.” And the donation guy says, “I think maybe you better take your stuff up the street.”
So I did. I took all my stuff to the Bad Will Store. Funky little place up on Colorado Blvd. Run by Pete Rose and Barry Bonds. Terrell Owens is their public relations guy.
I left some really neat stuff in there, too. There’s this one pair of brand damn new walking shorts that I bought on EBay. Beautiful pair of shorts. Size 46. Never worn. If you added a few tent poles, they would make a good starter home for some nice young family.
Just kidding. As most of you know, I could write a thousand words about not writing a thousand words.
The other night I was getting ready to go to bed, and I was standing in front of my dresser, holding my stomach up so it wouldn’t fall on my toes, and damned if I couldn’t find my ratty robe. No, it wasn’t in one of my tummy folds. I knew it was on the dresser top but, alas, it was not alone. There were many sartorial companions sharing the dresser space: pants, shorts, tee shirts, bathing suits, sweat pants, plus a few towels and a half of a ham sandwich. (Marge is so sloppy.)
I finally found my robe. It was the piled on garment with the most holes and I could smell the hardened syrup. Anyway, Marge made a nice little suggestion, “Honey, you think you could maybe get rid of some of those old clothes if you still want to be married and have meals prepared for you and not have to live on the street, darling?” I got her drift. I’m a drifter.
The next day I went to work. No, not work like you guys go to, fake work like throwing out old sartorial stuff. First, of course, I took all the stuff off the dresser top. Threw it on the bed. Then I opened some drawers and pulled out, and I’m not exaggerating here, 42 tee shirts that I had collected from minor league baseball games and minor league hockey games and minor league country concerts. Shirts from Red Deer and Medicine Hat and Alaska and Georgia and Texas and one that had Merle Haggard on it shooting a commie and one from Brandon, Manitoba, and one from Regina, Saskatchewan, and if I keep going I’m going to cry. It’s too late. I’m sobbing. OK, I’m balling. Like a crybaby.
When I finally stopped blathering, I went into my closet to look for other contributions to take to The Good Will store. My closet, thinking I guess that I would be pleased, was stuffed. I had slacks from when I actually could buy belts at regular stores. I had slacks with 36-inch waist seizes. Antiques. It was unreal. I kept throwing things on the bed. It was like a mountain of cheap wool and polyester. People from trailer parks were at the door. It was kind of neat. I traded some old pants for a Jeff Foxworthy CD.
I put, excuse the expression, a ton of pants on the bed. And not only pants. I found old pairs of dress shoes and cowboy boots and lumberjack boots and work boots and pissy-little colored belts and sport coats that Marty Robbins wouldn’t wear and suits and jackets and sweaters and I kept stacking them on the bed. You talk about a mountain. Sir Hillary would have gotten a Sir Hernia climbing that peak.
So I said to Marge, “Margie Pargie Wargie, would you please put the stuff on the bed in my bad-daddy Hemi SUV?” And Marge said, “You want to hear a Tammy Wynette song? D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”
OK, so me and a buddy and his friend, Mr. Forklift, got that mountain of crap, I mean, donation items, into the SUV. And then, because I am what, I am a wonderful, caring human being, I drove down to the Good Will Store. You know, the one on the corner of Altadena Drive and Foothill. Right across the street from the biggest giant-ass Mobil gas station on earth and right next to the Just Tires store. That one. I would have gone to the little thrift shop place up in Altadena on Lake but I thought they might kill me behind the store when I opened the door and just bury my dead poorly dressed body under my own old clothes.
Anyway, I get to the Good Will Donation Center, and I go inside to donation headquarters and the guy comes out to help me unload, and I open the door and we start taking the clothes out, and he looks at a few of the items and he kind of pauses and finally says, “You know, sir, we like to give people clothes that will, uh, increase their feeling of self-esteem.”
I laughed to myself with kind of a “if you weren’t with this Good Will outfit I would probably whack your ass” laugh. Then I said, “Uh, well these clothes were good enough for me for forty years. You think maybe your needy sumbitches could lower themselves just a tad.” And the donation guy says, “I think maybe you better take your stuff up the street.”
So I did. I took all my stuff to the Bad Will Store. Funky little place up on Colorado Blvd. Run by Pete Rose and Barry Bonds. Terrell Owens is their public relations guy.
I left some really neat stuff in there, too. There’s this one pair of brand damn new walking shorts that I bought on EBay. Beautiful pair of shorts. Size 46. Never worn. If you added a few tent poles, they would make a good starter home for some nice young family.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Laptop Losers (9-27-07)
Just when I thought it was safe to go out into the world after dealing with Them Mailbox-Bashing Bastards, I have to report that Mr. Recluse here has been struck again by a second set of bastards. How about if we call them These New Bastards.
Now I can't prove it, (as if that's ever stopped me from popping off) but I think These New Bastards were just waiting for me to start writing a column again and going out into this wonderful world and pretending I was Julie Andrews. I knew they were out there, just lurking. Nothing else to do. No, no. Just gotta lurk. Just wait around and lurk. I think we should put all lurkers in Guantanamo. And pee on something they like.
OK, These New Bastards did not attack my mailbox. They were smarter than that. They knew if they did any mailbox-whacking, there would be a little comes-around shotgun-whacking they would have to deal with themselves. No, These New Bastards stole my beautiful MacBook Pro laptop computer. I am still sick about it. They ripped it off last Sunday night, and my guts are still grinding today. I am not lying to you. My stomach is spitting out my old ulcers and making brand new ulcers. Second-generation ulcers. The worst kind.
Here's what happened. I was returning from a Scrabble tournament in Albuquerque. (Yes, yet another Scrabble tournament. No, I'm not telling you how I did.) It was a little Friday-to-Sunday deal and I was waiting for my plane in the Albuquerque (I just like writing Albuquerque) Airport. I had two hours to kill, so I went into this airport fake-Mexican restaurant. You know, the kind with serapes all over the walls and black and gold sombreros everywhere and the sweet smell of lard and grease and taco shells and spilled Corona and guacamole that was moving. And I said to the waitress, “I'm going to say words that have never been heard in this muy malo establishamente before.” She rolled her eyes and sighed, and I said, “I'll have a tuna sandwich.”
And, of course, all this time I am keeping close watch on my laptop. It's in my carry-on bag and I have it right next to me. So I'm not completely stupid. Yet. Then I go to the United Airlines gate where my plane will be boarding and I sit down in the waiting area and I'm probably happier than maybe 80 percent of the clams I know. And then this voice comes over the speaker announcing that our flight will be an hour late. OK, I can deal with that. I'm an adult. I can handle heartbreak — I'm an LA Kings fan.
So to pass the time, I pull out my computer and surf the Net and read a couple of chapters on my e-book and even order something from eBay. I am one tech-happening dude, baby. But I guess that is where These New Bastards spotted their prey. They must have seen just how wonderful my laptop was and just how savvy its owner was. Sumbitches.
OK, now here's where the rubber hit the road. United is finally boarding our flight and just when I get to the door of the plane, the flight attendant tells me that the plane is very full and would I mind letting them store my carry-on bag. I say, “Would I mind? Uh, would I mind if you cut off my ding-dong and threw it on the tarmac?” OK, I didn't say that, but I did inquire as to how safe the bag would be. They guaranteed me that it would be safe and they gave me a claim check and said that they would hold the bag until I gave them the claim check and that they would never let the bag out of their sight. They also said they liked to date lanky guys. So, I committed stupidity.
Well, when we landed in LA, I happened to be one of the last people off the plane. When I get just outside the airplane door, I see one lonely bag leaning up against the wall. It is my bag. I go over to it. There is no attendant there. There is nobody who asks me for my claim check. There is just my damn bag and the outer compartment, where I have cleverly hidden my $2,300 computer, is zipped open like Michael Jackson's fly.
My heart sank. I reached into the open unzipped hole of hell and I felt nothing. (Kind of like in high school.) It was devastating. My laptop was gone. Some New Bastards had gotten it. I was really mad. I won't go into it here, but I did some serious yelling. All I can say is that when one baggage clerk in the main office suggested that it was “your own fault, sir” I did lose it. I yelled, “How dare you?!” along with a few other thoughtful phrases. And she actually ran out of the office we were in. I think she's still running. I hadn't even used obscenity or threatened her or anything, but I was indeed mad. I guess she got my drift and caught the first stagecoach out of Dodge.
I'm still pissed off. I have fantasies about finding out who These New Bastards are. And ripping off their ears and stuffing them up their noses and making them sneeze and pinching their noses closed and watching their ears come out the holes where their ears used to be hooked onto the sides of their heads. Yes, I am that mad.
I want to find These New Bastards. How hard could it be? There were only 60 seats on the plane. And let's assume that the two pilots and the three flight attendants didn't do it. And I know I didn't do it. And I don't think Pasadena's Mac-hating PC guru Steve Bass was on the plane. So that leaves only 54 suspects. All I need is the passenger list and I'll deputize all you readers. (Sorry, but I can't deputize you readerettes. It's too dangerous.) And we'll mount up and go after these thieving varmints.
Let's ride!
Now I can't prove it, (as if that's ever stopped me from popping off) but I think These New Bastards were just waiting for me to start writing a column again and going out into this wonderful world and pretending I was Julie Andrews. I knew they were out there, just lurking. Nothing else to do. No, no. Just gotta lurk. Just wait around and lurk. I think we should put all lurkers in Guantanamo. And pee on something they like.
OK, These New Bastards did not attack my mailbox. They were smarter than that. They knew if they did any mailbox-whacking, there would be a little comes-around shotgun-whacking they would have to deal with themselves. No, These New Bastards stole my beautiful MacBook Pro laptop computer. I am still sick about it. They ripped it off last Sunday night, and my guts are still grinding today. I am not lying to you. My stomach is spitting out my old ulcers and making brand new ulcers. Second-generation ulcers. The worst kind.
Here's what happened. I was returning from a Scrabble tournament in Albuquerque. (Yes, yet another Scrabble tournament. No, I'm not telling you how I did.) It was a little Friday-to-Sunday deal and I was waiting for my plane in the Albuquerque (I just like writing Albuquerque) Airport. I had two hours to kill, so I went into this airport fake-Mexican restaurant. You know, the kind with serapes all over the walls and black and gold sombreros everywhere and the sweet smell of lard and grease and taco shells and spilled Corona and guacamole that was moving. And I said to the waitress, “I'm going to say words that have never been heard in this muy malo establishamente before.” She rolled her eyes and sighed, and I said, “I'll have a tuna sandwich.”
And, of course, all this time I am keeping close watch on my laptop. It's in my carry-on bag and I have it right next to me. So I'm not completely stupid. Yet. Then I go to the United Airlines gate where my plane will be boarding and I sit down in the waiting area and I'm probably happier than maybe 80 percent of the clams I know. And then this voice comes over the speaker announcing that our flight will be an hour late. OK, I can deal with that. I'm an adult. I can handle heartbreak — I'm an LA Kings fan.
So to pass the time, I pull out my computer and surf the Net and read a couple of chapters on my e-book and even order something from eBay. I am one tech-happening dude, baby. But I guess that is where These New Bastards spotted their prey. They must have seen just how wonderful my laptop was and just how savvy its owner was. Sumbitches.
OK, now here's where the rubber hit the road. United is finally boarding our flight and just when I get to the door of the plane, the flight attendant tells me that the plane is very full and would I mind letting them store my carry-on bag. I say, “Would I mind? Uh, would I mind if you cut off my ding-dong and threw it on the tarmac?” OK, I didn't say that, but I did inquire as to how safe the bag would be. They guaranteed me that it would be safe and they gave me a claim check and said that they would hold the bag until I gave them the claim check and that they would never let the bag out of their sight. They also said they liked to date lanky guys. So, I committed stupidity.
Well, when we landed in LA, I happened to be one of the last people off the plane. When I get just outside the airplane door, I see one lonely bag leaning up against the wall. It is my bag. I go over to it. There is no attendant there. There is nobody who asks me for my claim check. There is just my damn bag and the outer compartment, where I have cleverly hidden my $2,300 computer, is zipped open like Michael Jackson's fly.
My heart sank. I reached into the open unzipped hole of hell and I felt nothing. (Kind of like in high school.) It was devastating. My laptop was gone. Some New Bastards had gotten it. I was really mad. I won't go into it here, but I did some serious yelling. All I can say is that when one baggage clerk in the main office suggested that it was “your own fault, sir” I did lose it. I yelled, “How dare you?!” along with a few other thoughtful phrases. And she actually ran out of the office we were in. I think she's still running. I hadn't even used obscenity or threatened her or anything, but I was indeed mad. I guess she got my drift and caught the first stagecoach out of Dodge.
I'm still pissed off. I have fantasies about finding out who These New Bastards are. And ripping off their ears and stuffing them up their noses and making them sneeze and pinching their noses closed and watching their ears come out the holes where their ears used to be hooked onto the sides of their heads. Yes, I am that mad.
I want to find These New Bastards. How hard could it be? There were only 60 seats on the plane. And let's assume that the two pilots and the three flight attendants didn't do it. And I know I didn't do it. And I don't think Pasadena's Mac-hating PC guru Steve Bass was on the plane. So that leaves only 54 suspects. All I need is the passenger list and I'll deputize all you readers. (Sorry, but I can't deputize you readerettes. It's too dangerous.) And we'll mount up and go after these thieving varmints.
Let's ride!
I've Got Mail (9-20-07)
You’re probably thinking this will be a column about America Online. I wish it was. No, this column is about me finally getting actual real mail, snail mail. Letters, bills, magazines, 19th century stuff.
A few months back, I was just minding my own business in peaceful, law-abiding Altadena, living life, watching Jeopardy, eating food with trans fat still in it, and then them bastards struck. I went out one morning to pick up the newspapers and the mailbox was all smashed in. It appeared that some low-life, snot-snorting, knuckle-dragging, joy-riding, mutant jerk-off had maybe gotten malt liquored up and had taken a baseball bat to my mailbox.
I thought it was probably a teen-age right of passage deal, and being the forgiving type of guy I am, or at least hope to be some day, I let it go. I repaired the mailbox and went back to my regular life of getting angry at things I have no control over. And then them bastards struck again. I go out another morning to pick up the papers and let my robe fall open to give the neighbors a thrill, and damned if the entire mailbox has been whacked off its post. It’s just lying there, whimpering to me, “Jim, my owner, help me. Help me hold your mail once again. Help me do my job. Help me be a mailbox.” It was very sad.
However, I got over the sadness pretty fast and got in the car and started driving around the neighborhood to see if I could spot a pattern of other whacked mailboxes. Well, I found a few other banged up boxes, but nothing quite as bad as mine. A couple of them looked like maybe, Juan Pierre hat hit them, but mine looked like it had been Barry Bondsed, baby. It was ugly. I think it even had growth hormones on it. I bet AOL has never had that problem.
So this time I go over to Osh Hardware and I buy this industrial strength heavy titanium metal mailbox Superman would get a hernia hitting. I mean this mailbox was tough. You could make airline black boxes out of it.
And I go back to my house in the hills of life, and I attach this new iron box to the post, after many pathetic handy-man attempts, and I’m very pleased with my new indestructible creation. I’m thinking to myself, “Smash that you smash-ass bastards!” And I smiled and I kicked a few loose stones in my driveway really hard and I yelled, “Yeah! Me, the Man!”
And then, maybe a month later, I hear Hadley, my dog, barking his watchdog, psychotic bark, about midnight, and, well, like I handle most problems, I just ignored it. He was going nuts, barking and jumping at the front door, his canineacal head was whip lashing around spewing irate dog drool all over the hallway, and me, smart human-face, was yelling at him, “Quiet! I’m watching Letterman.” And I go to bed.
I get up the next morning, brush my teeth and my tongue, and go out in the kitchen and give Hadley his water and I take my 27 pills to keep me a movin and a groovin, and I start the coffee pot and I wander out to get the papers. Well, Virginia, I could not believe what I was seeing. (Hadley, however, could believe it. He was giving me the finger with his paw.) Them bastards had not hit my mailbox at all. But they had whacked out the wooden post on which the indestructible mailbox had been expertly installed by yours truly, Mr. Handyman Face.
It was quite a scene. The entire post was in splinters. I was devastated. Really. It was just a pitiful mess out there. And I felt hopeless. Just splintered wood everywhere and the jagged edge of the post sticking up from the ground and the mailbox was crying. I was almost defeated. But I wasn’t defeated. Just almost. No, nothing defeats me. Nothing. Except, chocolate.
So I called the Altadena Sheriff’s Station and a squad car comes out and I tell him my sad story and I show him the splintered mess and he takes my name for the report and then he says, “Aren’t you the guy who writes that smoke column?’ And I say, “Well, yeah. That’s me. Do you think it’s one of my critics who did this?” And the sheriff guy says, “I don’t know, but I can’t arrest 5,000 people, sir.” Those cops are kidders.
So now I have to figure out to stop them bastards for good this time. I go to Crown City Hardware down on Allen and I buy, I’m not kidding, I buy a $375 iron post, iron mailbox combo sumbitch that I can barely lift to get in the car. I spend $375 on a mailbox! 375 dollars. It did have an Eagle on the front of it.
Then I go to the Altadena Hardware Store on that little street off Lake that I don’t know the name of, and I go in there and I ask the guy for a post hole digger. And he says, “ We don’t employ any illegal aliens in here.” (I think he was the cops’ brother.) I didn’t laugh. Eventually I bought this big five-foot iron rod thing with a sharp pointed end and a 50-pound bag of cement.
I go home and I dig a post hole two feet deep and eight inches square and I fill that sucker with instant drying cement and I put in the iron post and iron mailbox all meshed together into one anti-bat-bashing-bastards unit. And that damn instant cement lives up to its name and now that mailbox is in, baby. I mean it is in. It is strong. It is iron in cement. It is solid.
If Them Bastards get this one, I guess I’ll have to open an AOL account. Or buy a shotgun. I’m going with B.
A few months back, I was just minding my own business in peaceful, law-abiding Altadena, living life, watching Jeopardy, eating food with trans fat still in it, and then them bastards struck. I went out one morning to pick up the newspapers and the mailbox was all smashed in. It appeared that some low-life, snot-snorting, knuckle-dragging, joy-riding, mutant jerk-off had maybe gotten malt liquored up and had taken a baseball bat to my mailbox.
I thought it was probably a teen-age right of passage deal, and being the forgiving type of guy I am, or at least hope to be some day, I let it go. I repaired the mailbox and went back to my regular life of getting angry at things I have no control over. And then them bastards struck again. I go out another morning to pick up the papers and let my robe fall open to give the neighbors a thrill, and damned if the entire mailbox has been whacked off its post. It’s just lying there, whimpering to me, “Jim, my owner, help me. Help me hold your mail once again. Help me do my job. Help me be a mailbox.” It was very sad.
However, I got over the sadness pretty fast and got in the car and started driving around the neighborhood to see if I could spot a pattern of other whacked mailboxes. Well, I found a few other banged up boxes, but nothing quite as bad as mine. A couple of them looked like maybe, Juan Pierre hat hit them, but mine looked like it had been Barry Bondsed, baby. It was ugly. I think it even had growth hormones on it. I bet AOL has never had that problem.
So this time I go over to Osh Hardware and I buy this industrial strength heavy titanium metal mailbox Superman would get a hernia hitting. I mean this mailbox was tough. You could make airline black boxes out of it.
And I go back to my house in the hills of life, and I attach this new iron box to the post, after many pathetic handy-man attempts, and I’m very pleased with my new indestructible creation. I’m thinking to myself, “Smash that you smash-ass bastards!” And I smiled and I kicked a few loose stones in my driveway really hard and I yelled, “Yeah! Me, the Man!”
And then, maybe a month later, I hear Hadley, my dog, barking his watchdog, psychotic bark, about midnight, and, well, like I handle most problems, I just ignored it. He was going nuts, barking and jumping at the front door, his canineacal head was whip lashing around spewing irate dog drool all over the hallway, and me, smart human-face, was yelling at him, “Quiet! I’m watching Letterman.” And I go to bed.
I get up the next morning, brush my teeth and my tongue, and go out in the kitchen and give Hadley his water and I take my 27 pills to keep me a movin and a groovin, and I start the coffee pot and I wander out to get the papers. Well, Virginia, I could not believe what I was seeing. (Hadley, however, could believe it. He was giving me the finger with his paw.) Them bastards had not hit my mailbox at all. But they had whacked out the wooden post on which the indestructible mailbox had been expertly installed by yours truly, Mr. Handyman Face.
It was quite a scene. The entire post was in splinters. I was devastated. Really. It was just a pitiful mess out there. And I felt hopeless. Just splintered wood everywhere and the jagged edge of the post sticking up from the ground and the mailbox was crying. I was almost defeated. But I wasn’t defeated. Just almost. No, nothing defeats me. Nothing. Except, chocolate.
So I called the Altadena Sheriff’s Station and a squad car comes out and I tell him my sad story and I show him the splintered mess and he takes my name for the report and then he says, “Aren’t you the guy who writes that smoke column?’ And I say, “Well, yeah. That’s me. Do you think it’s one of my critics who did this?” And the sheriff guy says, “I don’t know, but I can’t arrest 5,000 people, sir.” Those cops are kidders.
So now I have to figure out to stop them bastards for good this time. I go to Crown City Hardware down on Allen and I buy, I’m not kidding, I buy a $375 iron post, iron mailbox combo sumbitch that I can barely lift to get in the car. I spend $375 on a mailbox! 375 dollars. It did have an Eagle on the front of it.
Then I go to the Altadena Hardware Store on that little street off Lake that I don’t know the name of, and I go in there and I ask the guy for a post hole digger. And he says, “ We don’t employ any illegal aliens in here.” (I think he was the cops’ brother.) I didn’t laugh. Eventually I bought this big five-foot iron rod thing with a sharp pointed end and a 50-pound bag of cement.
I go home and I dig a post hole two feet deep and eight inches square and I fill that sucker with instant drying cement and I put in the iron post and iron mailbox all meshed together into one anti-bat-bashing-bastards unit. And that damn instant cement lives up to its name and now that mailbox is in, baby. I mean it is in. It is strong. It is iron in cement. It is solid.
If Them Bastards get this one, I guess I’ll have to open an AOL account. Or buy a shotgun. I’m going with B.
Ship to Shore (9-13-07)
I always thought “ship to shore” had something to do with phones. Like you’re on the ship and you call someone on the shore. Even I could understand that. Simple. You don’t need to be a Mensa member to get it. (By the way, a few years back I tried to join Mensa, but they said I didn’t have what most of their members had in their IQ scores. Three digits. I responded with one digit.)
Anyway, I discovered a new meaning to “ship to shore” last year while taking a cruise. Yes, while you were working your buttooskies off to feed your sniveling offspring and ungrateful spouses and you were getting up early to go to work and fight traffic and fight halitosis and contribute something relatively positive to society, I was on a cruise ship. What can I tell you? I also own an SUV and I smoke. And you thought George Bush had a low popularity rating. I’d kill for his numbers.
This was my fourth cruise. And in all the other cruises something would always happen. And that something would be that they would have to take some old fat guy off the ship with a heart problem. It was like a damn clock. One time they had to come for some poor hump on a helicopter. They hauled his ass off and we all watched from the Promenade
Deck. It was kind of a nice break from our usual promenading without anything to see.
Another time we were in port where some native people of indistinguishable heritage were dancing or jumping or having seizures, and they hauled another old fat guy off on a stretcher. I felt bad for him, too. But mostly I felt I’m glad it’s him and not me. Mother Teresa, eat your heart out.
And the other time they came for the HHH – the Hapless Heart Hump -- with this pissy little boat called a tender and they get this latest old fat guy and they are trying to take him down the gangplank from the ship to the tender and the waves are waving and the boats are rocking and the poor sumbitch has this look on his face like “I spent 6,000 bucks for this.” It was pitiful.
Well, gangplankers and gangplankettes, you guessed it. It was your lovable, lanky, column-writing, cigar-smoking, Dodge Durango-driving, red-meat-eating buddy who would be the latest old fat guy hump sumbitch. Yes, it was my turn in the barrel. And many people were rooting for the barrel.
So how did I become this HHH? Well, it all started at dinner. Oh, and it was my birthday, too. So it was my birthday dinner I guess. (Maybe Mensa will reconsider.) We were down in the beautiful, luxurious main dining room called Bowels Revenge where we were eating our usual five course meals. An appetizer and four entrees. I pulled the waiter over and said, “I’m not bloated. Who is responsible, dammit? And everything was going fine and then my buddy, Vic Vieira, started giving me birthday pirate toasts. And we were drinking some 18 year-old scotch (instead of chasing 18-year old women) and yes, we maybe had a few too many. Or, if you were Ted Kennedy, maybe we didn’t.
Every two minutes Vic would stand up and hold his left hand over one eye and say something with a pirate accent, “Let’s drink to our favorite fat ass, Jim Larnis, or Jim Loonis, or whatever the hell that lanky peg-legged loser’s name is.” He would raise his glass, and continue, “We drink to friendship and yardarm-ass is our friend and he’s on a ship so that’s gotta be friendship, get it, Matee.” It was quite eloquent. And he’d bribe the bartender-guy to give me doubles. And geez, I may have had, oh, five or six of the suckers. And we had a little celebration champaigne and some roast beef and baked potatos with sour cream and chives and onions and bacon and butter and someone’s martini olives. It was so much food we could barely eat our ice cream sundaes. And alas, I was kind of feeling a bit heart-humpish even then. Go figure.
So we finished dinner and we were heading back to our room and I said quietly to myself, “This would be a nice night for a little vagina.” But because I stutter, God heard it a little differently and he gave me a little angina.” Hey, I forgive him. I kind of slurred my request. And between the slurring and the stuttering, hell, you gotta cut God a little slack. But somewhere there’s a guy expecting a heart attack who got lucky.
Actually, it wasn’t even angina. It was just some other heart-related, life-threatening, Gods-a-kidder, ventricular tachycardia stuff. At least that’s what the African Bush ship doctor told me. He said if my heart monitor reading got any higher they would need taller nurses to read it. (I did learn later that I had an EKG of 272 which didn’t mean much to me until I saw Tony Soprano get a reading of 242 on HBO. The wimp.)
Well, the bottom line, is that, yes, I was the poor sumbitch old fat guy hump who got hauled off the ship. They put me on a stretcher and took me down the gangplank to the waiting ambulance. And as I looked up to the Promenade Deck I saw some future heart humps up there and I waved a brave wave and one of them hollered down, “You’re interrupting our mid-afternoon-after-lunch-before dinner buffet, asshole.”
Ah, the memories.
Anyway, I discovered a new meaning to “ship to shore” last year while taking a cruise. Yes, while you were working your buttooskies off to feed your sniveling offspring and ungrateful spouses and you were getting up early to go to work and fight traffic and fight halitosis and contribute something relatively positive to society, I was on a cruise ship. What can I tell you? I also own an SUV and I smoke. And you thought George Bush had a low popularity rating. I’d kill for his numbers.
This was my fourth cruise. And in all the other cruises something would always happen. And that something would be that they would have to take some old fat guy off the ship with a heart problem. It was like a damn clock. One time they had to come for some poor hump on a helicopter. They hauled his ass off and we all watched from the Promenade
Deck. It was kind of a nice break from our usual promenading without anything to see.
Another time we were in port where some native people of indistinguishable heritage were dancing or jumping or having seizures, and they hauled another old fat guy off on a stretcher. I felt bad for him, too. But mostly I felt I’m glad it’s him and not me. Mother Teresa, eat your heart out.
And the other time they came for the HHH – the Hapless Heart Hump -- with this pissy little boat called a tender and they get this latest old fat guy and they are trying to take him down the gangplank from the ship to the tender and the waves are waving and the boats are rocking and the poor sumbitch has this look on his face like “I spent 6,000 bucks for this.” It was pitiful.
Well, gangplankers and gangplankettes, you guessed it. It was your lovable, lanky, column-writing, cigar-smoking, Dodge Durango-driving, red-meat-eating buddy who would be the latest old fat guy hump sumbitch. Yes, it was my turn in the barrel. And many people were rooting for the barrel.
So how did I become this HHH? Well, it all started at dinner. Oh, and it was my birthday, too. So it was my birthday dinner I guess. (Maybe Mensa will reconsider.) We were down in the beautiful, luxurious main dining room called Bowels Revenge where we were eating our usual five course meals. An appetizer and four entrees. I pulled the waiter over and said, “I’m not bloated. Who is responsible, dammit? And everything was going fine and then my buddy, Vic Vieira, started giving me birthday pirate toasts. And we were drinking some 18 year-old scotch (instead of chasing 18-year old women) and yes, we maybe had a few too many. Or, if you were Ted Kennedy, maybe we didn’t.
Every two minutes Vic would stand up and hold his left hand over one eye and say something with a pirate accent, “Let’s drink to our favorite fat ass, Jim Larnis, or Jim Loonis, or whatever the hell that lanky peg-legged loser’s name is.” He would raise his glass, and continue, “We drink to friendship and yardarm-ass is our friend and he’s on a ship so that’s gotta be friendship, get it, Matee.” It was quite eloquent. And he’d bribe the bartender-guy to give me doubles. And geez, I may have had, oh, five or six of the suckers. And we had a little celebration champaigne and some roast beef and baked potatos with sour cream and chives and onions and bacon and butter and someone’s martini olives. It was so much food we could barely eat our ice cream sundaes. And alas, I was kind of feeling a bit heart-humpish even then. Go figure.
So we finished dinner and we were heading back to our room and I said quietly to myself, “This would be a nice night for a little vagina.” But because I stutter, God heard it a little differently and he gave me a little angina.” Hey, I forgive him. I kind of slurred my request. And between the slurring and the stuttering, hell, you gotta cut God a little slack. But somewhere there’s a guy expecting a heart attack who got lucky.
Actually, it wasn’t even angina. It was just some other heart-related, life-threatening, Gods-a-kidder, ventricular tachycardia stuff. At least that’s what the African Bush ship doctor told me. He said if my heart monitor reading got any higher they would need taller nurses to read it. (I did learn later that I had an EKG of 272 which didn’t mean much to me until I saw Tony Soprano get a reading of 242 on HBO. The wimp.)
Well, the bottom line, is that, yes, I was the poor sumbitch old fat guy hump who got hauled off the ship. They put me on a stretcher and took me down the gangplank to the waiting ambulance. And as I looked up to the Promenade Deck I saw some future heart humps up there and I waved a brave wave and one of them hollered down, “You’re interrupting our mid-afternoon-after-lunch-before dinner buffet, asshole.”
Ah, the memories.
You've Been Fast-Bagged, Son (9-6-07)
As I mentioned last week, I have taken up the manly pursuit of Scrabble. Now, I know your first thought is that playing Scrabble is not that rough of a game. OK, you’re right. It is not a physical game. The hardest thing you do is move letter-tiles around the board. There are no linebackers in Scrabble. However, Scrabble is not for sissies. (UCLA football is.)
But Scrabble can wear you down and beat you up and humiliate you and degrade you and squeeze your buttocks so tightly that you emit little whimper yelps and make you want to go Michael Vick on your Airedale. Yes, it can do that. Trust me. I’m your Scrabble Daddy.
Like last summer, not this summer, last summer, I went over to Phoenix, Arizona, in August to play in the National Scrabble Association Open Championship. You play 28 games of Scrabble in four days. That’s seven games a day for four days. Each game lasts almost exactly an hour because you have to use clocks like in chess. So that’s 28 hours of grinding your brain-guts into kidney-stone-sized pellets of puke. And then you go outside to escape the pain and mortification of Scrabble shame, and you walk out into a 118 degree pizza oven they call Phoenix. Pepperoni, this!
I think I may be getting a little ahead of myself—and at my age myself is the only one I can outrun. Just a couple quick things to help orient you to Scrabble rules. You probably haven’t played Scrabble since you were trapped at a party your spouse or spousette wanted to go to ten years ago and your teeth are still gritted so shut you drink your Starbucks lattes intravenously. Yeah, that caliber of Scrabble is called living room Scrabble. That is not professional Scrabble. In living room Scrabble you still have fun.
I play professional Scrabble. I don’t believe in no stinkin fun. Fun is for living room Scrabble sissy men. When I find fun, I take it outside, and I take off my belt and I whip that fun until it becomes embarrassed and apologizes to me for ever even thinking it was fun. That’s what I do to fun. It takes a little time, but I’m committed. And I probably will be in the future.
I use professional Scrabble words like za and qi and carex and gharri and djebel and those are just the people I play with! Nope, those are real Scrabble words my friends. And you thought I was kidding about taking the fun out of the game. No. No. I’m as serious as a blood clot, baby. And not only are the words non-funnish, but in order to be a professional Scrabble player you have to join the National Scrabble Association, and be ranked and rated, and play in tournaments and pay dues, and get newsletters, and swear allegiance to the Scrabble Players Credo “I shall learn to hate all words and all letters and hereby renounce any and all thoughts of having any fun myself or of sharing the fun of Scrabble with others.” I think I have met this challenge.
So let’s get back to Phoenix. I’m in the National Championship. I’m better than you living-room sucks already. OK, I’m not that much better than you. I am entered in Division 6 and there are six divisions. Let’s just say I’m not in the best division. I’m playing along, singing a song, and my opponent is a woman of say, 80 years old. I am not implying anything negative about her age because she is one of my peers. It’s just a fact. She is 80, she has a cane, she can’t hear, she has little black-doily eyes like Hitler’s sister, and she has that little Hitler mustache, too. Only hers has some of her lunch in it.
So we’re getting right to the end of the game and I’m leading her by 70 points or so, a pretty good lead. And then she lays down all seven of her tiles to form the word ZADDOCK. And she lays this zaddock word over a Triple Word space and she also gets a bonus of 50 points for getting a bingo with all her tiles. So she winds up with 92 damn points on one play. So the peer-aged biddy is ahead of me.
And then I turn the board around to look at the word she put down. And I see the ZADDOCK sucker there and I’m really skeptical of this fake-ass garbage, and I say real gentlemanly, “I challenge.” When you challenge in Scrabble it means you think the other player is playing a phony, and you go up to the judge and he rules on the questionable word.
Well, miss cane-holding, Hitler face, says, “You can’t challenge me. I’ve already picked my tiles out of the bag.” And I thought for a few seconds and came up with, “Uh, what!” To which she replied, “You were too slow. You should have challenged me sooner.” And I said, “Like when? The 19th century?”
Anyway, we hit the neutral button on the clock, and stopped the game, and I went up to the judge to plead my pitiful case. I told him how she played the word and before I had time to spin the board back around to look at the word and challenge her, she had already drawn her new tiles. I said that was unfair. And he agreed that it was unfair. I sobbed two sniffling tear-soaked nostril sobs. And I said it just wasn’t right and he said no, it wasn’t right and then he put his hand on my shoulder and said like a deeply-caring father, “You’ve been fast-bagged, son.”
And you thought Scrabble was a fun game.
But Scrabble can wear you down and beat you up and humiliate you and degrade you and squeeze your buttocks so tightly that you emit little whimper yelps and make you want to go Michael Vick on your Airedale. Yes, it can do that. Trust me. I’m your Scrabble Daddy.
Like last summer, not this summer, last summer, I went over to Phoenix, Arizona, in August to play in the National Scrabble Association Open Championship. You play 28 games of Scrabble in four days. That’s seven games a day for four days. Each game lasts almost exactly an hour because you have to use clocks like in chess. So that’s 28 hours of grinding your brain-guts into kidney-stone-sized pellets of puke. And then you go outside to escape the pain and mortification of Scrabble shame, and you walk out into a 118 degree pizza oven they call Phoenix. Pepperoni, this!
I think I may be getting a little ahead of myself—and at my age myself is the only one I can outrun. Just a couple quick things to help orient you to Scrabble rules. You probably haven’t played Scrabble since you were trapped at a party your spouse or spousette wanted to go to ten years ago and your teeth are still gritted so shut you drink your Starbucks lattes intravenously. Yeah, that caliber of Scrabble is called living room Scrabble. That is not professional Scrabble. In living room Scrabble you still have fun.
I play professional Scrabble. I don’t believe in no stinkin fun. Fun is for living room Scrabble sissy men. When I find fun, I take it outside, and I take off my belt and I whip that fun until it becomes embarrassed and apologizes to me for ever even thinking it was fun. That’s what I do to fun. It takes a little time, but I’m committed. And I probably will be in the future.
I use professional Scrabble words like za and qi and carex and gharri and djebel and those are just the people I play with! Nope, those are real Scrabble words my friends. And you thought I was kidding about taking the fun out of the game. No. No. I’m as serious as a blood clot, baby. And not only are the words non-funnish, but in order to be a professional Scrabble player you have to join the National Scrabble Association, and be ranked and rated, and play in tournaments and pay dues, and get newsletters, and swear allegiance to the Scrabble Players Credo “I shall learn to hate all words and all letters and hereby renounce any and all thoughts of having any fun myself or of sharing the fun of Scrabble with others.” I think I have met this challenge.
So let’s get back to Phoenix. I’m in the National Championship. I’m better than you living-room sucks already. OK, I’m not that much better than you. I am entered in Division 6 and there are six divisions. Let’s just say I’m not in the best division. I’m playing along, singing a song, and my opponent is a woman of say, 80 years old. I am not implying anything negative about her age because she is one of my peers. It’s just a fact. She is 80, she has a cane, she can’t hear, she has little black-doily eyes like Hitler’s sister, and she has that little Hitler mustache, too. Only hers has some of her lunch in it.
So we’re getting right to the end of the game and I’m leading her by 70 points or so, a pretty good lead. And then she lays down all seven of her tiles to form the word ZADDOCK. And she lays this zaddock word over a Triple Word space and she also gets a bonus of 50 points for getting a bingo with all her tiles. So she winds up with 92 damn points on one play. So the peer-aged biddy is ahead of me.
And then I turn the board around to look at the word she put down. And I see the ZADDOCK sucker there and I’m really skeptical of this fake-ass garbage, and I say real gentlemanly, “I challenge.” When you challenge in Scrabble it means you think the other player is playing a phony, and you go up to the judge and he rules on the questionable word.
Well, miss cane-holding, Hitler face, says, “You can’t challenge me. I’ve already picked my tiles out of the bag.” And I thought for a few seconds and came up with, “Uh, what!” To which she replied, “You were too slow. You should have challenged me sooner.” And I said, “Like when? The 19th century?”
Anyway, we hit the neutral button on the clock, and stopped the game, and I went up to the judge to plead my pitiful case. I told him how she played the word and before I had time to spin the board back around to look at the word and challenge her, she had already drawn her new tiles. I said that was unfair. And he agreed that it was unfair. I sobbed two sniffling tear-soaked nostril sobs. And I said it just wasn’t right and he said no, it wasn’t right and then he put his hand on my shoulder and said like a deeply-caring father, “You’ve been fast-bagged, son.”
And you thought Scrabble was a fun game.
Still Lanky After All These Years (8-30-07)
Well, hello readers and readettes. Your second worst nightmare has happened. No, Obama isn’t president. Laris is back. Cigar Smoke is back. Run-on sentences are back. Don’t spill your coffee. I don’t do wipe-ups.
So what have I been doing for nine years? (Can you believe it’s been nine fugaso years!) Yeah, I wrote my last column in August of 1998. And, as I recall, I think I told you I was leaving to write a novel and maybe do a compilation book of my old columns and generally take the time to write what I really wanted to write and finally put out some quality work. Well, I lied to you.
I haven’t written a damn word. Except for e-mails and notes to Marge (yes, I’m still married to the little woman) telling her what I want her to buy me at Ralph’s. The notes have been pretty good, though. Like sometimes I’ll ask for milk, cereal, mixed nuts, and 100-calorie popcorn packets. And Marge will comment on how nicely I’ve written the grocery request. Marge’s standards are not terribly high. She married me.
So, again, what have I been doing for nine years? Of course, I studied Italian to learn what the double hey hey fugaso meant. But other than that, I have not done much. I’ve basically spent my time getting older, fatter, and more medically challenged. I am now 66 years old. That is not a typo. That’s a pisso. But I’m a young 66. Which, I’ve been told means I’m old and immature. Hell, my kids, Mike and Casey, are 38 and 33. But, they’re a young 38 and 33. My dog, Hadley the long-headed Airedale, is even 70 in dog years. When we go for our sniff and stops now, I have to help him lift his left leg so he can pee on my shoe. He’s such a cute dog.
And I’ve gotten a little heavier. Not Al Gore heavy. But I can see it from here. My doctors wanted to do one of those stomach-stapling operations on me, but you guessed it. They didn’t have enough staples. So when I get on the scale each morning, this little voice that’s built into the scale says, “One at a time, please.” OK, that’s an old joke. Remember, not only will I lie to you, but I will use old jokes if I think I can get away with it. Like I just thought of this one the other day (or I just stole it the other day) “Do you know what the perfect woman is? She’s one part Navaho and three parts Regular Ho.” Ha, I guess you forgot just how funny I can be, huh? Nine years can’t take the humor out of me. Ten years? Maybe.
And yes, I’m going to be like every other semi-old person you know, and tell you about my medical problems. Like The Mick once said, “If I had known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” I’ve got a pretty good list going now. I’ve got hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, low self-esteem, tachycardia, sleep apnea, awake fatnea, plantar fascitiis, enlarged prostate, non-enlarged penis, a bad back, poor eyesight, man-boobs, arthritis, depression, and they recently told me I had diabetes. They said they could tell it was diabetes when my blood test came back with a high hot fudge count. Other than that, I feel damn good. What the hey, I’m basically living on house money now anyway. If I get another 20 years, great. If I don’t, I just hope there is a Baskin Robbins wherever I end up. Uh oh, I think it’s gonna melt. .
I’m not going to bore you with all the details of these ailments. Not now. In future columns I will bore you with these. Like the time last year I got pulled off the cruise ship in New Zealand with a heart problem, and had to spend a week in a Christchurch hospital. Now, that will be a boring column. Excruciatingly boring. Like a global warming seminar. You read my column, you pay the price. Nothing is free. Except, of course, The Weekly.
Other than trying to stay alive, I’ve done some semi-cool things with my time. I bought nine timeshares and am still married. I’ve become a Scrabble-playing freak going to tournaments in Phoenix, Dayton, and Homer, Alaska. Yup, wait until you hear how I was fast-bagged by that old biddy in Arizona. (I shouldn’t have kicked her cane out from under her.)
Marge and I now do two or three crossword puzzles a day, and we’re pretty damn good. And I don’t think it would be indelicate of me if I said that when I figure out a particularly difficult clue, it kind of gets Marge in the mood, if you catch my six letter word for hot-throbbing, senior-citizen, Medicare-card-burning, hanky with some arthritic panky.
And, of course, I’m still traveling a lot. I go up to Canada every winter to see some minor league hockey games. Snow and ice build character…and frostbite. I take a summer baseball trip every summer. (I’ve found that’s better than taking it in the winter. More games and it’s not as cold) And I go to boxing matches in Indian casinos where I tried to play Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em but I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. I lost so much money I would have shot myself, but alas, I had put my gun in the last pot. Sucker had an ace high flush to my facial flush.
Well, glad to be back, everybody. And remember, even after nine years, the most important thing you need to know about me, is that I’m what? I’m still lanky.
So what have I been doing for nine years? (Can you believe it’s been nine fugaso years!) Yeah, I wrote my last column in August of 1998. And, as I recall, I think I told you I was leaving to write a novel and maybe do a compilation book of my old columns and generally take the time to write what I really wanted to write and finally put out some quality work. Well, I lied to you.
I haven’t written a damn word. Except for e-mails and notes to Marge (yes, I’m still married to the little woman) telling her what I want her to buy me at Ralph’s. The notes have been pretty good, though. Like sometimes I’ll ask for milk, cereal, mixed nuts, and 100-calorie popcorn packets. And Marge will comment on how nicely I’ve written the grocery request. Marge’s standards are not terribly high. She married me.
So, again, what have I been doing for nine years? Of course, I studied Italian to learn what the double hey hey fugaso meant. But other than that, I have not done much. I’ve basically spent my time getting older, fatter, and more medically challenged. I am now 66 years old. That is not a typo. That’s a pisso. But I’m a young 66. Which, I’ve been told means I’m old and immature. Hell, my kids, Mike and Casey, are 38 and 33. But, they’re a young 38 and 33. My dog, Hadley the long-headed Airedale, is even 70 in dog years. When we go for our sniff and stops now, I have to help him lift his left leg so he can pee on my shoe. He’s such a cute dog.
And I’ve gotten a little heavier. Not Al Gore heavy. But I can see it from here. My doctors wanted to do one of those stomach-stapling operations on me, but you guessed it. They didn’t have enough staples. So when I get on the scale each morning, this little voice that’s built into the scale says, “One at a time, please.” OK, that’s an old joke. Remember, not only will I lie to you, but I will use old jokes if I think I can get away with it. Like I just thought of this one the other day (or I just stole it the other day) “Do you know what the perfect woman is? She’s one part Navaho and three parts Regular Ho.” Ha, I guess you forgot just how funny I can be, huh? Nine years can’t take the humor out of me. Ten years? Maybe.
And yes, I’m going to be like every other semi-old person you know, and tell you about my medical problems. Like The Mick once said, “If I had known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” I’ve got a pretty good list going now. I’ve got hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, low self-esteem, tachycardia, sleep apnea, awake fatnea, plantar fascitiis, enlarged prostate, non-enlarged penis, a bad back, poor eyesight, man-boobs, arthritis, depression, and they recently told me I had diabetes. They said they could tell it was diabetes when my blood test came back with a high hot fudge count. Other than that, I feel damn good. What the hey, I’m basically living on house money now anyway. If I get another 20 years, great. If I don’t, I just hope there is a Baskin Robbins wherever I end up. Uh oh, I think it’s gonna melt. .
I’m not going to bore you with all the details of these ailments. Not now. In future columns I will bore you with these. Like the time last year I got pulled off the cruise ship in New Zealand with a heart problem, and had to spend a week in a Christchurch hospital. Now, that will be a boring column. Excruciatingly boring. Like a global warming seminar. You read my column, you pay the price. Nothing is free. Except, of course, The Weekly.
Other than trying to stay alive, I’ve done some semi-cool things with my time. I bought nine timeshares and am still married. I’ve become a Scrabble-playing freak going to tournaments in Phoenix, Dayton, and Homer, Alaska. Yup, wait until you hear how I was fast-bagged by that old biddy in Arizona. (I shouldn’t have kicked her cane out from under her.)
Marge and I now do two or three crossword puzzles a day, and we’re pretty damn good. And I don’t think it would be indelicate of me if I said that when I figure out a particularly difficult clue, it kind of gets Marge in the mood, if you catch my six letter word for hot-throbbing, senior-citizen, Medicare-card-burning, hanky with some arthritic panky.
And, of course, I’m still traveling a lot. I go up to Canada every winter to see some minor league hockey games. Snow and ice build character…and frostbite. I take a summer baseball trip every summer. (I’ve found that’s better than taking it in the winter. More games and it’s not as cold) And I go to boxing matches in Indian casinos where I tried to play Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em but I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. I lost so much money I would have shot myself, but alas, I had put my gun in the last pot. Sucker had an ace high flush to my facial flush.
Well, glad to be back, everybody. And remember, even after nine years, the most important thing you need to know about me, is that I’m what? I’m still lanky.
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