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August 16, 2013

“There is no joy in Mudville.”-Ernest Thayer

Well, folks, this has been a pretty exciting ball game so far. Your Mudville Sliders are down by three with two outs. Crash Davis has just stepped up to the plate. You can tell Crash has had a good year just from his stats. This season Crash has a batting average of .398, an RBI of 174, he’s had eight home runs, forty-three stolen bases, seventeen assists, his OPS is .893, a 0.01 ERA pitching left-handed, a 0.02 ERA pitching right-handed, his HDL is below 30, and his blood pressure is 112 over 65. And there’s the pitch! It’s a low roller to right field, and Crash moves to first base. Rick Vaughn moves to second, and Roy Hobbs moves to third. The bases are now loaded, folks. This could determine the game. And it looks like the Rockford Roosters coach Terence Mann has just walked out onto the field to talk to the pitcher.

While that’s going on I’ll bring you folks up to speed on my stats. Fans know my wife told me she was leaving me the night the Sliders lost the second game of their double header against the Poughkeepsie Mudhens. Well really she threw me out, and cleaned out my bank account. My credit rating is worse than Moonlight Graham’s batting average. I’m currently sleeping on a couch in the manager’s office, and I’ve been eating a lot of soft pretzels lately. You could say I’m batting 0 for 5, with two strikes, and no balls. Just a second here while I pour myself another drink. Anyway, folks, it looks like the coach is retiring Roosters pitcher Laloosh and bringing in relief pitcher Malone. Who’s coming up to bat next? Wait a minute, let me move my drink here. Oh, it’s the mighty Casey. Most people know Casey for his record number of unforced errors, including catching one of his own fly balls. But Sliders fans know Casey for his charity, and he recently received a special commendation for his volunteer work in shelters in cities wherever the Sliders play. He’s also renowned for never taking anything stronger than aspirin.

He’s currently got a batting average of .198, which, funny thing, folks, is also my BAC right now. Most of you don’t know that Casey and I came up through the minors together, before I got pulled from pitching and drafted as a relief announcer after I hit eight players in a row. And here’s the first pitch! Nice hit for Casey, but it looks like a foul ball. Left fielder Chip Hilton drifts back and catches it. That’s one out and no balls. And the Roosters catcher has gone out to talk to the pitcher. While he’s doing that I’ll just mention that we had a little boy come into the booth earlier tonight to tell us he’d lost his dad. I asked, what’s he like? And the little boy replied, “Women and beer.” Well, guys, if any of you match that description and are missing a son you can pick him up at the lost and found after the game. And it looks like the Roosters coach has come back out onto the field, so, while they’re talking, let’s have a little music and I’ll have another drink. Okay, the coach is going back to the dugout and the catcher is back in position. He’s winding up. Here’s the pitch. And it’s a swing and a miss for Casey. That was the slowest fastball I think I’ve ever seen. Folks, I can barely stand up right now, and even I could have hit that one. What was Casey thinking? That’s two strikes and no balls.

This is getting pretty exciting now. Casey’s stepped out of the batter’s box and he looks like he’s taking some deep breaths. While he’s doing that I think I’ll have another drink. Okay, Casey’s at the plate again, and there’s the windup! And it’s a ball. That’s two strikes and one ball for Casey. You know, folks, Soupy Sales had kind of a funny story about the time he took his wife to a baseball game and he kissed her on the strikes and she kissed him on the balls. Well, I better not tell that story, since there are children here tonight. And it looks like the pitcher is shaking off the catcher. This is exciting, folks. Don’t despair. Remember another famous baseball player who said it ain’t over ‘til it’s…wait, there’s the swing…and it’s over. The mighty Casey has struck out. Well, good luck, Casey. This was his last game with the Sliders, folks. For those of you who haven’t heard Casey is moving up to the show, and will be playing for the Chicago Cubs.

August 9, 2013

This week the deli will be offering a sale on all turkey products, including: Sliced turkey, Smoked turkey, BBQ turkey, Smoked BBQ turkey, Turkey pastrami, Turkey hash, Turkey sausages, Smoked BBQ Turkey sausages (also available sliced), and Ankara. (Excluded: Turkey salad*).

Tuna salad will no longer be offered as a deli item following last week’s health inspection but may still be purchased prepackaged in this store’s dairy section.

Regular items in stock include:

Serrano ham product (with water)
Dry rub capicola salami
Hot genoa salami
Cold genoa salami
Smoked processed turkey substitute
Kangaroo sausage (spicy)
Olive loaf (mild)
Antony’s Premium pickled eggs
Antony’s Premium jellied eels
Liverwurst (Kosher)
Liverwurst (Halal)
Liverwurst (Gentile**)
Swiss cheese
Belgian cheese
American cheese ($6.99/lb)
Antony’s Premium American cheese*** ($5.99/lb)

*Contains no actual turkey.

**Produced in a facility that also processes nuts, peanuts, dairy, wheat, soy, egg, potato, petroleum, and tobacco products.

***Made in China.

August 2, 2013

When I was younger I was fascinated by the careers of people who succeeded early then burned out, like Dylan Thomas and Janis Joplin. Now that more than two of my threescore and ten are gone I look more to people like Robert Frost or L. Frank Baum, whose careers really didn’t take off until much later in life, although I think they at least had some idea what they wanted to do. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Anyway the stories of people who flail around for years before finally hitting it big are appealing, but also misleading. There was a time when I believed persistence paid off, and while I still believe it does I also recognize that success is really one percent inspiration, twelve percent perspiration, and ninety-five percent luck. That’s just an estimate, since we really can’t be certain. There are no biographies of people who tried and failed, so there’s no accurate way to gauge how many could-have-beens line the road to prosperity, or at least the sort of career where you don’t wake up each morning dreading the commute.

There may be seven quantifiable habits of highly successful people, but there’s an unmeasurable eighth: being lucky. It’s a revelation that I know is disheartening to people of my generation, and probably others as well, because so many of us were told over and over again by our teachers and other authority figures that we could be anything we wanted to be. My generation also grew up watching Free To Be You And Me in our classrooms and church basements, so we had the message that we could be anything drilled into us even more deeply by the likes of Marlo Thomas and Alan Alda. But I think in the back of our minds we all knew it wasn’t entirely true, just like when my third grade math teacher told us that 2+2 really equals 4.1415926, and that we should adjust our calculations accordingly, and we did even though we knew once we stepped out of the classroom the real world would be very different. Heck, even Mel Brooks had to give up his dream of being a cocktail waitress and settle for making highly successful movies and musicals instead, so what chance did we have? Admittedly the truth did occasionally come out when I was being punished for something and my parents would snap, “Life isn’t fair!” And for many of us this was even before we were aware of just how brutal the real world is, and how much random accidents play a part in determining one’s path in life.

Maybe it was comforting to adults to tell kids that we could do or be anything, or maybe it was just easier than having to explain that, while there are exceptions, for most people the egalitarian world is a myth, and mitigating factors like economic status, skin color, and even geography mean that chances are only a very small number of people will live up to their true potential and, by any measurable standard, some people really are better than others. Nothing throws this into sharper relief than a child born to a royal couple. Not that I have anything against royalty. There’s a long American tradition of criticizing monarchies, but if the culture wars and political correctness served any purpose it’s that they made us aware that the guys who founded the United States by rebelling against a tyrannical king weren’t that far from being tyrannical kings themselves, which may be why a lot of Americans, myself included, think royal families are one of those traditions that’s still worth keeping around. The only thing I really object to is when people say Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge will be normal parents. Aside from there being no standard for “normal parents”, their son, and any future children they may have, will have opportunities and advantages most of us can’t even imagine. And I don’t have a problem with that. The world may be an unequal place, but anyone who thinks that could be solved, or even reduced, by trying to make a future king’s life “normal” by taking away the advantages granted by the circumstances of his birth is hopelessly naïve. And it would be wrong, and one of the few lessons I learned as a child that hasn’t so far been proven wrong by experience is that two wrongs don’t make a right.

I realize there are a lot of arguments for ending Britain’s monarchy, the main one being that maintaining a royal family costs a lot of money, but they do try to spread the wealth around. Some people think Princess Di invented royal charity when she went to hospitals and showed that you could hug a person with AIDS and not burst into flames, but she was really improving a tradition dating back at least to the Dark Ages of the Touch for the King’s Evil. The king’s touch was supposed to heal sickness, so they were like the original televangelists, except the king would also give the sick person a little money instead of trying to fleece them. It was the least a king could do at a time when the least was all he could do for the least of his subjects, or they might start demanding crazy things like the right to own their own property. So the monarchy has improved, and if nothing else they’re a major tourist draw. Most of the arguments for ending the monarchy could also be made about Disneyworld, and I don’t see anyone calling for Mickey Mouse to be cut off. My grandparents went to England just to tour Buckingham Palace. While they were walking by the crown jewels my grandfather leaned over next to one of the guards and said, “Don’t mind me. I’m just here to see the Queen.” My grandmother told me they were watched very closely after that. She thought he’d made the guards think he was a threat. I think what really happened is that particular guard said to the others, “Check out this Yank—he’s funnier than Prince Philip.” I think the British appreciated my grandfather’s quirky sense of humor, which he was lucky enough to be born with.

July 19, 2013

The other day I passed a guy on the sidewalk playing a guitar. He had his guitar case open in front of him, and a few people had tossed in loose change and a couple of dollar bills. I tossed in a dollar as I went by because I felt sorry for the guy. This is Nashville, after all. This is Music City. Anyone with an ounce of talent isn’t performing on the sidewalks; they’re performing at one of the two dozen open mic nights that are held in every bar, restaurant, and lawyer’s office on Old Hickory Road, or in one of the houses turned into recording studios that are just three blocks south of where I work. Although anyone with two ounces of sense isn’t trying to get into Nashville’s recording scene, which is so crazy they made a movie and a TV show about it, neither of which makes it look all that appealing.

Although I’m not sure why there aren’t more street performers in Nashville. It seems like a great way to be noticed. In London, for instance, street performing is a way of life for many people, and it’s how a lot of successful British musicians, singers, actors, and comedians got their start. Eddie Izzard started out as a street performer, which is why, when he’s already been paid to do a gig in a $50-per seat theater and he rattles off a line that gets a big reaction from the audience, he says, “Thank you, but I don’t do this for applause. I do it for cash.” And then he passes a hat around, because old habits die hard.

You can’t go into a single London Underground station without passing at least five guitarists, two singers, and two guys playing didgeridoos and doing an Australian tribal dance. Once, on my way to a train, I passed a flutist. He was sitting cross-legged and playing a very sad, mellow tune. I’m not sure what it was—the only flute pieces I know are by Prokofiev and Jethro Tull. He had a satchel spread out in front of him, and there were only a few small coins on it. I felt bad for him, so I tossed a pound coin onto his satchel. I got on the train and looked back to see him take the pound coin and put it in the satchel. I thought, you charlatan. I felt bad for you, and you’ve probably got £200 in there. And then I realized he’d changed his tune—literally. It was something light and happy—it might have even been “Thick As A Brick”, although if he was taking requests I would have asked for “Bungle In The Jungle”, but that’s another story. In the space of less than a minute I went through the entire spectrum of emotions from pity to outrage to happiness tinged with regret for having thought badly of him. The pound I tossed to him was probably the most money he’d make all day.

I told this story to a professional drummer named Jamie whom I worked with briefly. I wasn’t touring in a band, unfortunately, but Jamie was between gigs and doing temp work in my office. I was training him to work in the mailroom, and, being a drummer, he could open boxes with one hand and sort letters with the other. Anyway Jamie told me that street performers are also often at risk of getting robbed, so no matter how much they’re making it’s safer to keep the larger denominations hidden. That added another layer of regret for me thinking badly of the flutist. Jamie had a lot of great stories of his own about performing and touring, although my favorite story had nothing to do with his professional experience. He’d left a gig and was walking down the sidewalk, and he saw a group of people walking up the street toward him. They were being led by a guy dressed in an all-white suit, who, Jamie would later find out, was a then unknown comedian named Steve Martin. Martin even talks about this same event in his autobiography, although he doesn’t mention meeting Jamie. Martin got bored doing his act one night in a club, so he got the entire audience to get up and follow him out, turning the act into a street performance. And this happened in Nashville, about three blocks north of where I work.

July 12, 2013

*The title is Latin, which you probably will only recognize if, like me, you flunked Latin in both high school and college, or if you’ve read James Thurber’s “The Dog That Bit People”.

Almost every character in Greek mythology has a story. Some have elaborate family histories that can be traced all the way back to the Greek version of the beginning of the universe, while others seem to come out of nowhere, and mainly serve to explain the origin of narcissus flowers, echoes, or condoms. Even Odysseus’s dog, Argos, has a story: he is so faithful he waits twenty years for his master, and is the first to recognize him on his return, even though Odysseus is in disguise. There’s another dog in Greek mythology who I think served just as faithfully, and for much longer, but his only reward is that Hercules drags him around. Even his origins are never adequately explained. This is an attempt to correct that.

Hear me, mortals. The other gods meddle in your lives, pit you against each other in silly wars, abuse you, or ignore you. I am not like them. All of you will come before me, so there is no need for me to hasten your arrivals, or to toy with you during your short lives. I am lord of all things. When I took Demeter’s daughter for my wife even Zeus, who calls himself father of gods and men, did not interfere. It is only with my permission that she is allowed to leave. The other gods are powerless before me, for I know the value of all things, I hold all wealth, and yet I know that even we gods are not truly immortal. I am merely the one who stands at the final gate beyond which there is nothing. This is why they shun me, and I have no place on Olympus. I rule alone. And yet I choose sometimes to walk among you, mortals. My kingdom, though it is more vast than any other, is like a dark mirror held up to yours. Sometimes it amuses me to come into the light.

One day, in summer, with my wife absent, I rose from my throne, passed the Furies, bode Charon carry me across the river Styx as he made his way to the far shore. Only those who have been properly buried may be taken over on their first arrival. The others, those whose bodies are never recovered, must wait a hundred years. They reached out to me, begging as I passed by. I could end their suffering, but it’s not my concern. I climbed upward and emerged into forest, beyond which lay the city of Cumae. I felt something like happiness when I saw it was a festival day, with street performers, jugglers, tumblers, stalls and shops selling banners and ribbons. It amuses me how mortals mark time, and how they sometimes celebrate its passing.

Amongst the other festival events was a man standing before a shabby tent. “One drachm to see something you’ve never seen before,” he cried. For most I believe this was a high price. Either he had something truly wonderful to see or was a fool who would soon lose all his money and be run out of town. I pressed a coin into his hand and he lifted the heavy fabric aside for me to enter. The heat was oppressive inside the tent. The festival sounds were muted. I became aware of a whimpering, and found, on a pile of filthy straw, a dog, a bitch with a litter of pups still suckling. This was something I’d seen before, something most had seen before. But in the middle of the tent was a box with more straw. A whining came from it. Inside was another pup. Aphrodite holds sway over fertility, while Hera claims hold over motherhood. When they bicker over territory these mistakes happen. The lives of such creatures are usually short and unhappy. This doesn’t matter to me. But something about this creature, this pitiful, eyeless thing, its three mouths searching for its mother, still wet from birth, with an already limited world further reduced by the confines of a box of straw in which it scooted back and forth, made me turn. The negotiations with the tent’s owner were quick. I could have offered him a hundred times as much, but avarice is easily manipulated, and the small amount I handed over allowed him to imagine himself wealthy. I lifted the pup from the box, cradled it, and in an instant we were on a mossy bank of the lake Avernus. The pup moved weakly. I couldn’t carry it back to my kingdom—the distance was too great. But I didn’t want it to enter the usual way either. Not just yet. I held it close and looked at the trees overhead. I, greatest of all the gods, held this tiny fragile thing. I knew it would, like all who pass over, become something else. Now weak it would be powerful. Now starved it would be sated. Now in pain it would never be hurt again. I could end its suffering. And yet I delayed, holding it close against me. Then it was done.

My kingdom has always had many guards, and few desire to enter before their appointed time anyway. And yet this dog takes pride in patrolling the borders and confronting the uninvited few who come to pester me with petty demands. I need no protection, but when I walk he accompanies me. In the spring sometimes I sleep, and when I wake Cerberus is always there.

June 28, 2013

An inventor has come up with a new way for women to dissuade creepy would-be suitors: hairy-legged pantyhose. I have about a dozen jokes about this, but they all have to take a back seat to the fact that two decades ago my wife and I were married by a judge who looked so much like John Cleese that, after he read the wedding vows I asked him, “What was the middle part?” I occasionally wonder why she’s stayed with me all these years, and she used to suggest that I only married her for her dogs, but then they became our dogs. I do, however, have a list of reasons I’ve been happily married to her for the past twenty years that is comprehensive, exhaustive, and woefully incomplete:

-Because she introduced me to sushi.

-Because she knitted me a hat that looks like a fish.

-Because sometimes she turns to me in the middle of a baseball game and says, “I think we both need another beer.”

-Because she has a recipe called “husband’s delight” that primarily consists of cheese, sour cream, ground meat, and noodles.

-Because when we’re watching a movie and I say, “Where have I seen that guy?” she always knows.

-Because with her, and the dogs, I’ve been to Kansas, Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, California, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, Georgia, Arkansas, and Mississippi. And eventually we’ll get to Oregon.

-Because her dogs loved me almost as much as she did.

-Because when we first met she was impressed that I could recite “Jabberwocky” from memory, and is still patient when I recite the entire “How do you know she’s a witch?” scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

-Because after all these years she still occasionally says, “You’re so weird”, and still means it as a compliment.

-Because on one of our first dates we watched A Fish Called Wanda.

-Because we once brewed and then split an entire batch of excellent stout beer, then brewed and spit out an entire batch of ale that didn’t turn out so well.

-Because of that, you know, that thing. That one time. In that place.

-Because sometimes she’s willing to watch Doctor Who.

-Because I got a wonderful mother-in-law out of the deal, which was more than worth the cost of never being able to use half the Henny Youngman jokes I know.

-Because she was willing to wait.

-Because when I moved in the first thing she did was buy more bookshelves.

-Because we don’t cancel out each others’ votes.

-Because after some movie trailers she says, “You can see that one without me.”

-Because after some movie trailers she says, “We really need to see that one.”

-Because she builds fences and can repair small household appliances and I go to book clubs.

-Because in another year our marriage will legally be allowed to drink.

June 21, 2013

Often in movies and TV shows you’ll see drug lords, mafia dons, and other high level career criminals dining in restaurants. And this is never portrayed realistically. The truth is these guys can’t just go out for a nice meal at a fancy restaurant, even if they had reservations, without a lot of additional preparation. Well, most of the time they don’t bother with reservations, because if you’re a drug lord, mafia don, or other high level career criminal the last thing you want to do is advertise to the FBI, Interpol, or any of your numerous would-be assassins exactly where you’re going to be at seven p.m. next Thursday. What these gentlemen will usually do is send a group of their assistants ahead. There’s at least one documented case of this in which the assistants locked all the restaurant doors and windows, lowered the blinds, confiscated all cell phones, and informed everyone in the restaurant that no one would be allowed to leave until the boss had finished his meal. As an added bonus they also paid for everyone’s meal. Even though all cell phones had been confiscated one restaurant patron managed to record the assistant’s instructions. A transcript of those instructions follows.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, The Boss will be dining here tonight, and we thank you in advance for your cooperation. All doors and windows have been locked, and we will have to ask you to hand over your cell phones. The gentlemen walking among you now is my assistant Shkodran. Please give them to him, and take one of the tickets he is offering with his hook. These will allow you to reclaim your phones later. I must also ask you to please not make any sudden moves around him. When The Boss arrives we would also like to ask that you please refrain from looking at him or, unless you are his waiter, speaking to him. Do your best to carry on as though he is not here.

 

While the preparations may cause you some inconvenience, which we deeply regret, please understand that we are trying to minimize the possibility that some or all of you may be injured or killed this evening. We would like to avoid that if at all possible. Should any unforeseen circumstances arise we will try our best to avoid any crossfire that could endanger anyone not affiliated with The Boss, but, please understand, if an emergency arises you will be solely responsible for your own well-being.

 

Regarding The Boss’s personal habits, you may have heard a vicious and entirely unfounded rumor that he has had individuals with whom he’s had disagreements cooked and served to him as food. We would like to assure you that The Boss finds the very idea barbaric in the extreme, and that he has informed me personally that he finds human flesh too salty for his refined palate. We can also assure you that even if he were to indulge in such outré cuisine he would only do so in the privacy of his own home where he is served by his personal and trusted chef. This evening he will be dining strictly from the menu.

 

We would also like to remind you that The Boss has exemplary table manners He does not belch or pass gas through any bodily orifice. He also does not have any noticeable body odor, other than a light scent of vanilla and cherry bark. Any suggestion or indication by you to the contrary will greatly increase the possibility that you will be injured or killed this evening. Again, we would like to avoid that if at all possible.

 

Finally I am happy to inform you that, in gratitude for your cooperation this evening, The Boss will be paying for all your meals. We ask, though, that you simply dine as you normally would, and not attempt to take advantage of The Boss’s generosity. Those who would like to do so are encouraged to order dessert. The Boss highly recommends the chocolate mousse.

 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your cooperation.

June 14, 2013

So I was walking to the bus stop and I smelled skunk. Smelling a skunk isn’t unusual if you’re on a long road trip, especially if you’re driving through rural or wooded stretches. The smell hits you, and even if you don’t see the roadkill you know it’s somewhere nearby. Where I catch the bus, though, is within sight of downtown. It’s almost the heart of the city, and is all concrete, brick, and glass. At the corner a row of silos rises from an unmarked white building. There are bars on either side of an empty car warehouse whose huge windows reflect a spectral version of me layered over broken tile columns and drop cloths and a wine bottle as I walk by. On one window someone has scrawled, “can I live??”

Across the street from the bars is a place that sells plumbing fixtures, which makes me wonder if lots of people come out after last call and throw up on the window display of toilets, or if I’m the only one who did that. It might be a habitat for rats, but surely not skunks. The closest park is miles away. There are a few trees planted in the sidewalks, leftovers from a brief surge of eco-urbanism in the Seventies. I think they’re oaks and maples. Maybe someone planted them with a mischievous or even anarchic intent, hoping they’d thrive and break the sidewalk, sending roots through the sewer system, disrupting traffic, and ultimately allowing nature to reclaim what has been paved over. Instead they’ve been stunted. They’re not growing, and it would be wrong to say they’re even surviving. They’re just dying an extremely slow death.

The smell of skunk made me stop next to one of those trees. I’m not sure why everyone thinks of the smell of skunk as so awful. I don’t think it’s pleasant, necessarily—I wouldn’t want it bottled as a cologne, but I’ve smelled worse things. And it gives me a strange, almost synesthetic experience. It’s one of those rare smells that seems to me to have color and texture. It’s tawny, and has a texture like parchment, which is why, even though I don’t want to smell it for long, I don’t hold my nose at it either. Maybe everyone just pretends it’s fouler than it really is because we all understand it’s supposed to be a deterrent. Smell is supposed to be the sense most closely tied to memory, like the way Proust would always remember where he’d left his keys when he smelled turmeric. The smell of skunk vividly brings up for me one night of summer camp. We slept in canvas tents propped up on wooden frames with wooden floors. One night at supper one kid started telling everyone there was a white rat under his tent. What was a white rat doing in the woods? I wondered if it was an escaped pet, since you don’t usually find rats, let alone albino ones, in the wilderness. Anyway a group of us crowded into his tent. He led the way with the rest of us crowding close behind him, hoping for a look at this white rat. “I can see it,” he whispered, and we all got in closer. Then he yelled, “IT’S A SKUNK!” And within half a second we were all ten feet outside the tent, standing around the middle of the campsite looking at his tent. The skunk came out too, from under the wood floor. It gave us all a look that clearly said, “What’s wrong with you people?” We were all paralyzed, watching it like a bomb that could go off at any second. Except it didn’t. The skunk had decided that being mistaken for a white rat was insult enough, and it wasn’t going to be the butt of any more jokes.

I wish this were a better, funnier story. I wish we’d all been sprayed and that I could tell you we all had to go to the bathhouse and let sadistic camp counselors pour tomato juice over our bodies so we looked like Sissy Spacek at the climax of “Carrie”, and that our clothes had to be burned. If your only experience with skunks is Pepe le Pew you may be surprised to learn that skunks don’t stink all the time. They have to be provoked to give up the stench, and this one had probably become acclimatized to people by living under a tent. It would have been unnecessarily cruel to the skunk to poke it or threaten it or do something crazy to make it spray us, but a part of me wishes we had. It would have made a better story, and briefly set us apart from the civilized world. So the smell of skunk brings up a complex cocktail of regret and relief, and relief again that, as I was walking down the sidewalk, I only smelled a skunk and didn’t see one, that I wouldn’t be in any danger of carrying the smell home. And this is where I’ll leave you, on the sidewalk, next to one of those stunted trees. My bus is here.

June 7, 2013

As soon as I dropped the car off I was dreading the call. I’d left it at the auto repair place with explicit instructions that all it needed was an oil change, but I knew from previous experience that later in the day I’d be getting a call, that they would have found some urgent and costly and completely unrelated problem that would need to be fixed. The phone would ring and the guy from the auto place would say, “Mr. Waldrop? We found a loose thread in one of the seat cushions. Now it’ll cost $150 for us to cut it, but I’d suggest you let us go ahead and do it now or in a couple of months it’ll be $500 to get the entire seat replaced.” And because I have the word “sucker” printed across my forehead in special ink that only auto repair people can see I’d tell them to go ahead and do it.

I should clarify that I usually take the car to one of those fancy chain auto repair places, although I have on a couple of occasions taken it to an independent, locally owned auto shop. You know the sort I mean: it’s a dirty, ramshackle building, usually behind a lonely gas station on a country road. Outside there’s a stack of a half dozen tires from long extinct car models. The inside is all wood paneling with a calendar with a girl in a bikini hanging behind the desk. The guy who comes out to look at your car wears coveralls that look like they’ve been dipped in grease, and he’s got seven teeth pointing in eight different directions, and he leans over the engine with a lit cigar hanging from his lips and tells you something you can’t understand, but that’s okay. In spite of the fact that this sort of place always makes me uncomfortable I feel like these guys know what they’re doing. Those aren’t grease stains on their coveralls and caps and eyelids. Those are battle scars. They’ve learned the mysteries of the internal combustion engine, and can fix anything from a lawnmower to a Rolls Royce, sometimes just by hitting it hard enough in the right place with a wrench. And these are guys who’ll knock fifty bucks off replacing your car’s thermostat if you remembered to bring a box of doughnuts.

The place where I dropped the car off to get the oil change was the exact opposite of one of those places. As I said it’s one of those fancy chain places, where the interior is all gray and lavender, where brand new tires are arranged in geometric patterns and support promos for the latest animated film. If you want to wait while your car is fixed there’s a lounge where the big screen TV is always tuned to the home and garden network, and where you can enjoy a complimentary cup of free trade Sumatran medium roast. This is not an auto repair shop. It’s an automotive transformation boutique. Most of the employees appear to be between the ages of twenty and twenty five, wear spotless uniforms without a trace of grease, and look like cover models for CaZ, the magazine for the discriminating coveralls wearer. Even the one old guy, who’s a dead ringer for J.K. Simmons, is spotless, which makes me wonder if they wear hazmat suits just for oil changes. The whole place is permeated with the heady scent of tire rubber with just a hint of lilac. I can understand why they charge a little more – hey, those artisanal pastries aren’t cheap. But I also feel a little nervous. I wonder if they really know what they’re doing, especially when they tell me all these 2012 models have a special left-handed brake fluid catcher that needs to be replaced every six months, and I say, “But this is a ’98.”

This last time, though, when the call came all the young woman said was, “Mr. Waldrop, your oil change is done, and your car is ready any time you’d like to pick it up.” I nearly fell out of my chair. There was no hairline fracture in the carburetor, no southward drift in the rear axle, no coolant leak in the starboard nacelle’s plasma relay. So I went in to pick up the car and pay for the oil change, and the guy was ringing it up and said, “It’ll be $49.75. Would you like to make it an even $50 and donate the change to disaster relief?” This top-off program is something I’ve never heard of before. It sounded like a possible scam, even though I knew I was dealing with a legit business. And I was tempted to say, “Remember that time you charged me $600 and didn’t fix the problem I had but just made my car smell like maple syrup? Skim a quarter off of that.” Then I had this mental image of some poor child standing in the ruins of her house saying, “My family lost everything, including my pet goldfish, and now we can’t even get a lousy box of macaroni and cheese because you won’t part with two bits, you schmuck”. I felt so deeply conflicted that I finally said to the guy, “If you’re going to make me this uncomfortable you should at least have a calendar with a girl in a bikini hanging behind the desk.”

May 31, 2013

Summer is almost here, which means the major television networks are currently working on their fall schedules. What follows is a memo regarding new shows that one network is planning to air. How it fell into my hands is another story.

To: Scheduling Dept.
Re: Fall 2013 schedule

This network has consistently been fourth out of four among the networks in most markets, and fifth in a few, coming behind PBS. The programming heads have determined that major changes are needed for the Fall 2013 schedule. In developing new shows we’ve tried to aim for innovation, to create shows that are new, exciting, and different to appeal to the vital 18-35 demographic while also staying within established parameters so as not to alienate other demographic groups. The key is being innovative with what works. Please produce a schedule with slots for these shows we’ve developed for the coming season:

Eye See You (30mins, Reality): This is from the producers of Burn, Baby, Burn, our popular reality program in which families competed against each other in the Sierra Pelona Mountains while having to escape being burned by a giant magnifying glass. Eye See You is an exciting new reality program in which diverse contestants from all walks of life will have to perform emergency surgery. They will be provided some training prior to competing, but the real twist is they have to do it blindfolded!

Suck It (60mins, Drama): Aloysius Bernard isn’t just a vampire: he’s also a cop who’s been fighting crime as a member of the Atlantic City police force since the Civil War. Now he’s got a new partner, a tough girl rookie who grew up on the streets fighting the undead. Together they’ll have to work out their differences to solve crimes. Will she have to hide the crucifix her late grandmother gave her? Will he be able to restrain himself when she gets a paper cut? Things take an even stranger turn when these two very different cops find they may have feelings for each other.

For Richard Or Poorer (60mins, Drama): After trying and failing to save the life of a homeless man on his street recently-divorced doctor Richard Poor decides to fight hospital policy, and budget cuts, to provide medical care to the disadvantaged. It’s a heavy job, but he knows someone has to do it. With the help of his fellow doctors he just might find a way. Meanwhile he’s got to juggle a budding romance with a nurse and the faithful companionship of his pet iguana.

Too Old For This Bleep (30mins, Comedy): Five friends and veterans of the Tulsa, Oklahoma police force have been looking forward to retirement. But when a clerical error wipes out their pension funds they find themselves unable to leave the force, and training a group of unruly rookies to solve crimes. It’s a clash of generations as the old guys try to keep the kids in line while also finding out that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Cut Ups (60mins, Dramedy): Life is tough for University of Ohio med school student Alannah Hayes. Her loans have been cut, and she’s struggling to make ends meet. On top of that an uncle she only just met has just passed away and left her his Toledo comedy club. She has to sell it as quickly as possible…or does she? With her fellow students she’ll be taking gross anatomy by day and telling gross-out jokes by night, and just trying to get by in Frogtown.

Finally, while the network executives are pleased that the exciting and innovative mid-season filler, Is That You Mo Dean? (60mins, Drama), about an HIV-positive man making peace with his past and looking for love in a small Iowa town, has already been nominated for six Emmys, three Critics’ Choice Awards, a Writers’ Guild Award, a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and even a BAFTA. Having been featured in TV Guide as "the best show you’re not watching" it is being cancelled after its third episode due to lack of viewer interest. This will leave the Tuesday night, 9PM slot free. This decision is NOT final. Executives are considering re-working the series and making the main character a retired doctor who now spends his time helping the police solve crimes.