Thursday, October 31, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Fred's Book Club: Mr. Dark.
Hello again, readers, and welcome to another episode of the Humpback Writers, our Wednesday book feature. To date we have had no writers with actual Quasimodo-type humps, and if we don't on the day before Halloween, it's looking less likely that we ever will. But we do have a scary classic for you today, one of my all-time favorites.
When Ray Bradbury published Something Wicked This Way Comes in 1962, he was a long-established writer, primarily of science fiction but almost entirely of short stories. It was his second novel, after the more and still famous Fahrenheit 451 (two other books published as novels, Dandelion Wine and of course The Martian Chronicles were assembled from previously published short stories). Unlike the futuristic Fahrenheit and many of his science fiction stories, Something Wicked takes place in the contemporary era, or at least as it was when Bradbury was a boy in the Midwest, ninety years ago.
It's a small Midwestern town, in the autumn, much too late for a carnival, when Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in the dead of night. Then very strange things start to happen. The heroes of the book, Jim Nightshade, his friend Will Halloway, and Will's father Charles, will face many terrors in the days to follow.
It may sound pretty clichéd now, but despite carnivals having been kind of creepy forever, I don't know that anyone ever did them so well as Bradbury. Not even Charles Finney, whose Circus of Dr. Lao (1935) is also a classic of the form. What happens in Something Wicked doesn't always seem like much at first, but is always truly eerie, painted by Bradbury's colorful, sensual flourishes. You might come across a boy, for example, who has literally ridden the calliope too many times:
One hand hung off the platform.Later in the book, when Mr. Dark takes a more personal interest, and goes looking for the boys, things get hairy:
It did not belong to a boy.
It seemed like a huge wax hand shriveled by fire.
The man's hair was long, spidery, white. It blew like milkweed in the breathing dark.
They bent to see the face.
The eyes were mummified shut. The nose was collapsed upon gristle. The mouth was a ruined white flower, the petals twisted into a thin wax sheath over the clenched teeth through which faint bubblings sighed. The man was small inside his clothes, small as a child, but tall, strung out, and old, so old, very old, not ninety, not one hundred, no, not one hundred ten, but one hundred twenty or one hundred thirty impossible years old.
Will touched.
The man was cold as an albino frog.
"Smart hide-and-seekers, both," said Mr. Dark. "But someone's smarter. Did you hear the carousel calliope tonight? Did you know, someone dear to you was down to the carousel? Will? Willy? William. William Halloway. Where's your mother tonight?"I've read plenty of books that are scary, but Bradbury can be absolutely visceral. Mr. Dark came to play, yo.
Silence.
"She was out riding the night wind, Willy-William. Around. We put her on. Around. We left her on. Around. You hear, Willy? Around, a year, another year, another, around, around! ...
"Around, around, and when we let your mother off, boy, and showed her herself in the Mirror Maze, you should have heard the one single sound she made. She was like a cat with a hair ball in her so big and sticky there was no way to gag it out, no way to scream around the hair coming out of her nostrils and ears and eyes, boy, and her old old old. ..."
I never wanted to see the film version of the book, made in 1983. It seemed the definition of an unfilmable book. So much happens inside characters' heads (true for his work in general) that could only be shown visually by a director of extraordinary genius, and I don't think from the reviews that even Jack Clayton was up to the task. If you've read any of Bradbury's suspense stories, you might figure that a Bradbury character, seen in real life, is a guy who just stands there and goes nuts. From outside it's just strange, but from inside it makes all the interior sense that insanity can provide. That's why I never bothered with The Ray Bradbury Theater either; a story like "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" is terrific reading but, to not test the patience of the film audience, would have to have a running time of five to ten minutes tops. (And I'd rather not discuss the 1980 Martian Chronicles miniseries before breakfast.)
Something Wicked is a chilling book, not only because the evil is so close, and seems unstoppable, but because it also is often so tempting. The carnival tempts our three heroes in different ways right up to about the end of the book. The boys are on the cusp of manhood; the father feels old and failed; men torn in life by different ways, faced with an evil that thrives on exploiting them. Can they pass the test? Can they even survive? Neither are givens in Bradbury's dark fiction.
When I first encountered Bradbury in high school, I wanted to write just like him -- but it is much harder than it looks. I've never gotten close, and finally just had to try to find my own style. Sometimes I'll forget him for a while, and then I'll grab one of his newer books or pick up an older one again and wow! What a great writer.
I was sad when I heard he'd died in 2012, even though he was 91, and would have needed to run on the calliope backward to stay around much longer. He's the only book writer I ever sent a fan letter to, and he wrote back very cordially, which made my decade.
And speaking of decades, I last read this book ten years ago almost to the day -- I know because when I dug out my copy I found a bus ticket inside that I'd been using for a bookmark. The date stamp was 10/23/09. Time for another ride on Mr. Dark's calliope, perhaps?
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
The rise and fall (and rise?) of SnackWell's.
Was very surprised to see this in the store:
What the heck...?
SnackWell's, for those of you old enough to recall, was the biggest name in cookies, at a time when Clinton was the president and the Internet was still commonly called the "World Wide Web" (complete with quotes). Nabisco's magic lightweight cookie, heralded in 1994 by the New York Times as "The Cookies that Ate a New Market," was huge. Commercials featuring a hapless "cookie man," the SnackWell's truck driver, being pursued by three hungry women of a certain age, were staples of TV advertising. The brand expanded to have a number of varieties at its peak, including the popular Devil's Food and various sandwich cookies.
And then, suddenly... they were gone.
Brands rise and fall, we know that, but the disappearance of SnackWell's was so abrupt and complete that I often wondered what happened. But until this box appeared suddenly -- without the Nabisco logo, note -- I never bothered to find out.
Well, now I found out, thanks to Karen Corday's story from last April in Tedium. In a nutshell, the story goes like this: SnackWell's was created as a low-fat treat in response to the famous (and perhaps disastrous) Food Pyramid that demonized fats and lionized carbs. People dove for their fat-free guilt-free goodness. But the whole thing cratered in the early aughts as it became clear that we were getting fatter and that maybe carbs without fat was not the way to healthy eating. It didn't help when a bad food trend got named for the brand: the SnackWell Effect showed that when people thought something wasn't as unhealthy they would consume more, erasing the possible benefits. Sales dropped precipitously. So Nabisco got rid of SnackWell's.
But now it's back.
B&G is a New Jersey-based company that has made its own cottage industry by buying defunct, once-huge brands and relaunching them. These include classics like Green Giant, B&M, Clabber Girl, Underwood, Cream of Wheat, Sugar Twin, and who could forget Molly McButter? And that's in addition to their own B&G-branded pickles and whatnot. The new SnackWell's is no longer fat-free; these devil's food cookies have 3g of fat per serving, as well as 120 calories, and that's just for two cookies. They do say that it has "40% less fat than the leading brand of fudge and marshmallow cookie," meaning Mallomars, which have 5g of fat per serving but 10 fewer calories. In any event, SnackWell's still ain't Atkins.
All right, but how do they taste?
I have to tell you -- they taste as much like nothing as any cookie I have ever eaten.
I'm serious. The flavors of chocolate and marshmallow in this SnackWell's cookie are mild to the vanishing point. I was chewing the cookie and wondering what on earth it was, because I couldn't taste hardly anything. It was like slapping yourself on the cheek when you've had Novocain, wondering at the lack of feeling, except with flavor.
I did try SnackWell's in its heyday and I don't recall them being so flavorless. But it is possible. We know that fat is the great conveyor of flavor, so the originals might have even been worse. And maybe that's the real reason for the SnackWell Effect -- you wind up eating more of them, trying to build up some amount of flavor in your mouth.
Sorry, B&G; I love you as a rescuer of brands (and brand mascots), but I can't recommend this product.
What the heck...?
SnackWell's, for those of you old enough to recall, was the biggest name in cookies, at a time when Clinton was the president and the Internet was still commonly called the "World Wide Web" (complete with quotes). Nabisco's magic lightweight cookie, heralded in 1994 by the New York Times as "The Cookies that Ate a New Market," was huge. Commercials featuring a hapless "cookie man," the SnackWell's truck driver, being pursued by three hungry women of a certain age, were staples of TV advertising. The brand expanded to have a number of varieties at its peak, including the popular Devil's Food and various sandwich cookies.
And then, suddenly... they were gone.
Brands rise and fall, we know that, but the disappearance of SnackWell's was so abrupt and complete that I often wondered what happened. But until this box appeared suddenly -- without the Nabisco logo, note -- I never bothered to find out.
Well, now I found out, thanks to Karen Corday's story from last April in Tedium. In a nutshell, the story goes like this: SnackWell's was created as a low-fat treat in response to the famous (and perhaps disastrous) Food Pyramid that demonized fats and lionized carbs. People dove for their fat-free guilt-free goodness. But the whole thing cratered in the early aughts as it became clear that we were getting fatter and that maybe carbs without fat was not the way to healthy eating. It didn't help when a bad food trend got named for the brand: the SnackWell Effect showed that when people thought something wasn't as unhealthy they would consume more, erasing the possible benefits. Sales dropped precipitously. So Nabisco got rid of SnackWell's.
But now it's back.
B&G is a New Jersey-based company that has made its own cottage industry by buying defunct, once-huge brands and relaunching them. These include classics like Green Giant, B&M, Clabber Girl, Underwood, Cream of Wheat, Sugar Twin, and who could forget Molly McButter? And that's in addition to their own B&G-branded pickles and whatnot. The new SnackWell's is no longer fat-free; these devil's food cookies have 3g of fat per serving, as well as 120 calories, and that's just for two cookies. They do say that it has "40% less fat than the leading brand of fudge and marshmallow cookie," meaning Mallomars, which have 5g of fat per serving but 10 fewer calories. In any event, SnackWell's still ain't Atkins.
All right, but how do they taste?
I have to tell you -- they taste as much like nothing as any cookie I have ever eaten.
I'm serious. The flavors of chocolate and marshmallow in this SnackWell's cookie are mild to the vanishing point. I was chewing the cookie and wondering what on earth it was, because I couldn't taste hardly anything. It was like slapping yourself on the cheek when you've had Novocain, wondering at the lack of feeling, except with flavor.
I did try SnackWell's in its heyday and I don't recall them being so flavorless. But it is possible. We know that fat is the great conveyor of flavor, so the originals might have even been worse. And maybe that's the real reason for the SnackWell Effect -- you wind up eating more of them, trying to build up some amount of flavor in your mouth.
Sorry, B&G; I love you as a rescuer of brands (and brand mascots), but I can't recommend this product.
Monday, October 28, 2019
Jimmy who?
I was listening to an interview with the actor Treat Williams -- as opposed to the proctologist Treat Williams, yeah, yeah -- and he said that one day, while he was working on a movie with Richard Dreyfuss, the two of them were chatting about great Hollywood stars. They mentioned Jimmy Stewart, of course. And a set designer nearby asked, "Who's Jimmy Stewart?"
Wow.
Bad enough that kids today -- "kids" being anyone under 40, I guess -- don't know anything about a movie that wasn't shot in color. But Jimmy Stewart? Haven't we all seen It's a Wonderful Life at least once at Christmas?
Maybe not.
I blame VHS.
My family were very late to get cable. My dad was not someone who was interested in spending money when there was perfectly adequate television available off the airwaves. So we were the last family I knew of to get cable. Hell, I didn't even have a microwave oven until I was in my first apartment. We were just as late to get a VHS player. And not having cable or especially VHS meant that you got exposed to old movies back then.
When I was a child I had little interest in the movies my parents liked from their youth. BOR-RING. I didn't like movies anyway; they were too confusing, too adult, too long. I'd watch the same episode of The Flintstones 800 times but couldn't sit through The Maltese Falcon once. But they were on a lot, especially on local channels that had a lot of hours to fill and not a lot of money. So we'd watch them. And as I grew up I learned to enjoy stories that were maybe old-fashioned, but still had a lot to say, stories with interesting characters and interesting plots. Some were fantastic.
I don't say that it made me a movie buff, because my attention span has always been a little short of two hours, but it made me appreciate old well-made movies a lot. That was the gift for their being nothing else on.
The VHS changed all that, as did cable. Kids growing up in the new age never had to see a thing that was older than they were. It helped sever all ties to the past. It's another example of technology acting against the expected results -- instead of offering a window to yesteryear through the magic of film, it relegated everything old of whatever quality to the dustbin of time.
And that is really a shame. My interest in history in part emerged because of old movies -- not period classics like Gone with the Wind or Gunga Din or Captain Blood, although they helped, but because I could see the world my parents lived in before I was born and it made sense to me. Once you get that feeling, that the people who came before deserve interest and respect, you start looking further. Otherwise you can't get past "If you're so smart, how come you're dead?"
Anyway, kiddies, if you are still wondering, this right here is Jimmy Stewart, a man who could do any kind of movie exceptionally well:
If Hollywood has ever turned out a better actor, I have not seen him. We're lucky to still have so many of his performances available to us. Even his lousy movies -- and he made a zillion films, so there are some bad ones -- are worth the time. He was that good.
So now you know.
Wow.
Bad enough that kids today -- "kids" being anyone under 40, I guess -- don't know anything about a movie that wasn't shot in color. But Jimmy Stewart? Haven't we all seen It's a Wonderful Life at least once at Christmas?
Maybe not.
I blame VHS.
My family were very late to get cable. My dad was not someone who was interested in spending money when there was perfectly adequate television available off the airwaves. So we were the last family I knew of to get cable. Hell, I didn't even have a microwave oven until I was in my first apartment. We were just as late to get a VHS player. And not having cable or especially VHS meant that you got exposed to old movies back then.
When I was a child I had little interest in the movies my parents liked from their youth. BOR-RING. I didn't like movies anyway; they were too confusing, too adult, too long. I'd watch the same episode of The Flintstones 800 times but couldn't sit through The Maltese Falcon once. But they were on a lot, especially on local channels that had a lot of hours to fill and not a lot of money. So we'd watch them. And as I grew up I learned to enjoy stories that were maybe old-fashioned, but still had a lot to say, stories with interesting characters and interesting plots. Some were fantastic.
I don't say that it made me a movie buff, because my attention span has always been a little short of two hours, but it made me appreciate old well-made movies a lot. That was the gift for their being nothing else on.
The VHS changed all that, as did cable. Kids growing up in the new age never had to see a thing that was older than they were. It helped sever all ties to the past. It's another example of technology acting against the expected results -- instead of offering a window to yesteryear through the magic of film, it relegated everything old of whatever quality to the dustbin of time.
And that is really a shame. My interest in history in part emerged because of old movies -- not period classics like Gone with the Wind or Gunga Din or Captain Blood, although they helped, but because I could see the world my parents lived in before I was born and it made sense to me. Once you get that feeling, that the people who came before deserve interest and respect, you start looking further. Otherwise you can't get past "If you're so smart, how come you're dead?"
Anyway, kiddies, if you are still wondering, this right here is Jimmy Stewart, a man who could do any kind of movie exceptionally well:
If Hollywood has ever turned out a better actor, I have not seen him. We're lucky to still have so many of his performances available to us. Even his lousy movies -- and he made a zillion films, so there are some bad ones -- are worth the time. He was that good.
So now you know.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Implementater.
My wife and I were talking about work over lunch, and she casually mentioned a class of workers known as implementers, those whose job is to begin and enforce new policy. In the breezy matter of conversation she called them implementaters by mistake, and we both started to laugh.
I don't know if it's an Americanism, but calling a potato tater goes back to at least 1759, according to Merriam-Webster's. It has always come across as a creation of the rural South, but if the word goes back that far I don't think it is. Of course, in New England people were always more formal. After all, Mr. Potato Head -- not just Potato Head, much less Tater Head -- was born of Hasbro, a company originally from Providence, Rhode Island. They are still headquartered in the state, and they still refer to Mr. Head as Mr. Potato Head.
As for the tater, we all know about Ron "Tater Salad" White, the comedian from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, not to mention the old "Common Tater" joke. All of these crossed our minds as we wondered about the nefarious doings of the implementaters.
And speaking of nefarious doings, I thought of a book as well, a classic from the late Georgia boy Lew Grizzard, from 1988:
It also seems that taters have ears! There's a band called the Taters from Virginia, and not one but at least two country legends who went by the nickname Tater -- Little Jimmy Dickens, who got the name Tater from Hank Williams himself, and blues man Foster Wiley, called Tater. the Music Maker.
And taters are athletic! The term tater for home run appears to go back as far as the 1960s, and possibly farther, according to this brief and entertaining article from the 6-4-3 Putout blog.
Them taters is busy!
One way or another, folks, we'd best be careful. It looks like them taters cain't allus be trusted. And I say that with firm conviction, and a real phony Southern accent.
I don't know if it's an Americanism, but calling a potato tater goes back to at least 1759, according to Merriam-Webster's. It has always come across as a creation of the rural South, but if the word goes back that far I don't think it is. Of course, in New England people were always more formal. After all, Mr. Potato Head -- not just Potato Head, much less Tater Head -- was born of Hasbro, a company originally from Providence, Rhode Island. They are still headquartered in the state, and they still refer to Mr. Head as Mr. Potato Head.
As for the tater, we all know about Ron "Tater Salad" White, the comedian from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, not to mention the old "Common Tater" joke. All of these crossed our minds as we wondered about the nefarious doings of the implementaters.
And speaking of nefarious doings, I thought of a book as well, a classic from the late Georgia boy Lew Grizzard, from 1988:
It also seems that taters have ears! There's a band called the Taters from Virginia, and not one but at least two country legends who went by the nickname Tater -- Little Jimmy Dickens, who got the name Tater from Hank Williams himself, and blues man Foster Wiley, called Tater. the Music Maker.
And taters are athletic! The term tater for home run appears to go back as far as the 1960s, and possibly farther, according to this brief and entertaining article from the 6-4-3 Putout blog.
Them taters is busy!
One way or another, folks, we'd best be careful. It looks like them taters cain't allus be trusted. And I say that with firm conviction, and a real phony Southern accent.
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Friday, October 25, 2019
Hallowane?
The news reports that Americans are spending ridiculous amounts on Halloween this year -- Good Morning America of the crack fake news media claims it may reach $8.8 billion, with $3.2 billion spent on costumes alone. Half of that may be for inflatable T. rex outfits, to make an idle guess. MarketWatch reported that Americans are spending half a billion just on costumes for their pets, for the love of Pete.
Well, that's not happening in this house, no sir, not on my watch. Actually, my dogs are nudists at heart. They eschew hats and capes. When they went through obedience training they both hated having to pose with the graduation cap. Larger dog Tralfaz wanted to chew it to pieces. I had to force him to stay in place while I clamped the damn thing on his cinder-block skull for the two lousy seconds required to get the photograph.
So you can see how well obedience class actually worked.
Anyway, my point today is that people may indeed be spending these crazy sums, but I'm not seeing it. I know we're still a week out, but decorating is definitely down this year, at least around here. Definitely seen fewer ads for Party City this year.
There are a few folks that have gone gung ho, especially a pal of ours in Long Island who sent us pics of his legendary display, but in my neck of the Hudson Valley it's definitely on the more reserved side. Still, we got:
And not much more.
I'm just curious if any of you have felt that Halloween may have peaked and is kind of on a downturn. I guess things always go in waves. Even if I'm right, and Halloween spending is below expectations this year, I'm sure it will return soon, with bloody bodies strewn all over the yards of America once more.
Personally, it doesn't bother me one way or another. The real data I would like to have is how many kids will show up at the damn door on Halloween. Historically I have either gotten caught short and wound up giving away money and raisins, or, since that could not be allowed to happen twice, have overbought candy and been stuck with the stuff afterward. It's harder to give away Halloween candy than I could have ever imagined as a child. Some outfits collect candy for our military personnel but no one around here seems to run collections, and you can't just mail out a box of loose peanut butter cups.
Well, that's not happening in this house, no sir, not on my watch. Actually, my dogs are nudists at heart. They eschew hats and capes. When they went through obedience training they both hated having to pose with the graduation cap. Larger dog Tralfaz wanted to chew it to pieces. I had to force him to stay in place while I clamped the damn thing on his cinder-block skull for the two lousy seconds required to get the photograph.
So you can see how well obedience class actually worked.
Anyway, my point today is that people may indeed be spending these crazy sums, but I'm not seeing it. I know we're still a week out, but decorating is definitely down this year, at least around here. Definitely seen fewer ads for Party City this year.
There are a few folks that have gone gung ho, especially a pal of ours in Long Island who sent us pics of his legendary display, but in my neck of the Hudson Valley it's definitely on the more reserved side. Still, we got:
 |
| Scary projectors! |
 |
| Scary skulls! |
And not much more.
I'm just curious if any of you have felt that Halloween may have peaked and is kind of on a downturn. I guess things always go in waves. Even if I'm right, and Halloween spending is below expectations this year, I'm sure it will return soon, with bloody bodies strewn all over the yards of America once more.
Personally, it doesn't bother me one way or another. The real data I would like to have is how many kids will show up at the damn door on Halloween. Historically I have either gotten caught short and wound up giving away money and raisins, or, since that could not be allowed to happen twice, have overbought candy and been stuck with the stuff afterward. It's harder to give away Halloween candy than I could have ever imagined as a child. Some outfits collect candy for our military personnel but no one around here seems to run collections, and you can't just mail out a box of loose peanut butter cups.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Fred's Book Club: Good to Be Bad.
It's the return of the Humpback Writers, the weekly feature that has nothing to do with the unfortunate condition of kyphosis and everything to do with the fact that it appears on Hump Day. And this bad name for a literature series is perfectly suited for today's wonderfully bad book, B Is for Bad Poetry by Pamela August Russell.
Published in 2009, this book sets out to be bad and succeeds. Its voice is that of a frustrated and irresponsible female-type person who is not so much yearning for love as desperate and disgusted by it, and by life, in equal measures. The poetry is mostly modern free-form, which is lazy and thus a little worse than structured poetry, and yet it is so much beautifully the worse for it. Here are a couple of the many gems in the book, reproduced by scan so you get the feel for the texture of this high-class production.
This is some good bad stuff right here. I love it. Fans of the old SCTV will know that to be this bad you have to be very good.
And to be honest, it's not really bad. The poems are mostly very short, which requires a mastery of brevity, potency in a handful of words, albeit for comedy's sake. And many of them display a great use of imagery, even if it is swamped by maudlin self-pity. These are poetic qualities and not easy. But all of them lead to laughs, either of the wry grin sort, the SMH and smile variety, or the burst-out laughing type.
Other non-inspirational poems in the book include "Film Noir Haiku," "Showdown at the I'm Not OK Yet Corral," "Recipe for Disaster," and "Betty Crocker's Oven-Free Cookbook Tops the Bestseller List in Hell." I feel enlightened just reading the titles.
So who is Pamela August Russell? Beats me. She's still around, but her blog went extinct eight years ago. Since I discovered this book I hoped that there might be a sequel, maybe C Is for More Crap, but no luck yet.
Well, we're blessed to have the current treasury. The poems, numbering well over a hundred and running the emotional gamut from pathos to bathos, would be a little much to take all at once. For that matter, no one reads all 44 Sonnets from the Portuguese all in one sitting, do they, smart guy? No, it's best just to leave the book somewhere and dip in when the spirit moves you. You will appreciate the craft involved.
Yes, sometimes you must be cruel to be kind, and sometimes you must be bad to be good. Or good to be bad. Or something.
Published in 2009, this book sets out to be bad and succeeds. Its voice is that of a frustrated and irresponsible female-type person who is not so much yearning for love as desperate and disgusted by it, and by life, in equal measures. The poetry is mostly modern free-form, which is lazy and thus a little worse than structured poetry, and yet it is so much beautifully the worse for it. Here are a couple of the many gems in the book, reproduced by scan so you get the feel for the texture of this high-class production.
This is some good bad stuff right here. I love it. Fans of the old SCTV will know that to be this bad you have to be very good.
And to be honest, it's not really bad. The poems are mostly very short, which requires a mastery of brevity, potency in a handful of words, albeit for comedy's sake. And many of them display a great use of imagery, even if it is swamped by maudlin self-pity. These are poetic qualities and not easy. But all of them lead to laughs, either of the wry grin sort, the SMH and smile variety, or the burst-out laughing type.
Other non-inspirational poems in the book include "Film Noir Haiku," "Showdown at the I'm Not OK Yet Corral," "Recipe for Disaster," and "Betty Crocker's Oven-Free Cookbook Tops the Bestseller List in Hell." I feel enlightened just reading the titles.
So who is Pamela August Russell? Beats me. She's still around, but her blog went extinct eight years ago. Since I discovered this book I hoped that there might be a sequel, maybe C Is for More Crap, but no luck yet.
Well, we're blessed to have the current treasury. The poems, numbering well over a hundred and running the emotional gamut from pathos to bathos, would be a little much to take all at once. For that matter, no one reads all 44 Sonnets from the Portuguese all in one sitting, do they, smart guy? No, it's best just to leave the book somewhere and dip in when the spirit moves you. You will appreciate the craft involved.
Yes, sometimes you must be cruel to be kind, and sometimes you must be bad to be good. Or good to be bad. Or something.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Dog song.
If I could have a treat
A little treat from you
It would be awful nice
And it would see me through
Oh it would be so sweet
If I could have a treat
If I could have a pet
One little pet from you
To show me that you care
And that you like me too
Would be the best thing yet
To have a little pet
If I could take a walk
Go take a walk with you
We wouldn’t go too far
And you might like it too
And we could sit and talk
If we could take a walk
🐶
If I could share a home
Could share my home with you
And you could be my dog
And I would love you too
It’s just a dream come true
To share a home with you
👱
So, the above song -- and there is music, which I usually steal inadvertently when I try to compose music -- was inspired by Junior Dog Nipper, watching me with irresistible puppy eyebrows working while I was cooking dinner. He fancies himself my sous chef, which means he wants to hang around in the kitchen in case anything falls off the counter. But I can't let him, because there are knives, and foods that are poisonous to dogs. So he sometimes loafs on the ground and gives me the eyes. Which are irresistible.
The proximate cause for running this soggy sentiment today is that Subaru, a lifestyle company that happens to manufacture cars, has declared October 22 to be the first annual Make a Dog's Day. And I like this idea. We know a lot of dogs need homes, and a lot of people who could take care of one and whose lives would be improved by the experience should have a dog.
BUT -- and this is a major caveat -- I will be the first to say that not everyone ought to run out and get a dog from the shelter. Dogs are more work than I had anticipated when we got Senior Dog Tralfaz. Some shelter dogs are a positive danger to small kids or other animals, and a good shelter will have assessed them for this behavior before sending them out, but not all do or can. Many families are simply too busy to give a dog the attention it needs. Many people living alone simply can't handle the requirements of a dog, for exercise or discipline or veterinary cost. The sad irony is that people with the time to raise dogs are often very young, very old, very broke, or very disabled -- the exact people who would have the most difficulty caring for a pet. And some people are just plain allergic to dogs. So although I get weepily sentimental about the big lugs, I would never place a canine with someone who couldn't cope with it. It's just stupid, and possibly dangerous.
On the other hand, a lot of folks who do have the time and the money to have a dog just don't want the added responsibility. I understand that too. I felt that way for a long time. However, I feel that way about pretty much everything that enriches my life. Dumb shallow stuff is easy. Important stuff is hard.
Anyway, I've always been a sucker for puppy eyes. Who isn't?
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| Shameless |
Monday, October 21, 2019
Boo. Hoo.
So the Yankees lost the American League Championship Series on Saturday night, and I for one would like to extend the same sympathy and fellowship and sportsmanship to my friendly Yankee fan buddies as they have been known to extend to us Mets fans.
Yes, like the guy who asked me last week if I knew the price of a hot dog in Citi Field in October, in the hope that he could tell me that no one knows -- never mind that the last New York team to win the pennant was not named the New York Yankees, just saying. Or like the guy who thought it was "cute" that I was still wearing my Mets cap in September, when the Mets still had a shot at the Wild Card. Or like the guy who asked me how many decent Mets the Yankees might pick up after our collapse in 2016, and whether I thought they were worth the precious Yankee dollars or too injury-prone. (This last guy was not even trolling me; he had no idea he was being a condescending wanker until I suggested he commit seppuku with his own John Thompson, or words to that effect.) Or the blowhard who, a couple of years ago, when injuries decimated the Mets' starting pitching, would ask me how the Fragile Five were doing constantly. Or the dimwit who engaged me in a conversation about the relative superiority of his team and mine and, when he realized he was losing the argument, resorted to spitting "Twenty-seven, baby! Twenty-seven!" as if the number of past championships was relevant to the topic he had raised.
This is what it's like being a Mets fan. It's like having a big brother who was the star of everything while he was beating you up every single day. It extends outside the borders of the Bronx, the city, even the state. The sense of entitlement of the average Yankees fan makes the average Royal Family look like St. Francis. At their wizened little hearts they are like Derek Jeter casually taking an extra base after smashing Bryce Florie in the eye with a line drive and almost blinding him and definitely ruining his career. Jeter looked like it was just another day at the office after almost killing a guy. Because nothing else matters but winning, right?
Well, my friendly Yankees fans, I've complained here before that the Mets only get a shot every fifteen or so years at the title, and that's not the Yankees' fault (except maybe when a Yankees pitcher in the World Series should have been thrown out of a game but was not, because Yankees). But I hope that you will get to enjoy decades of futility now, like most other MLB teams, having had a shot this year and blown it. And after, say, thirty years of failure, maybe I will cry a Bronx River for you.
But don't count on it.
[Author's Note: Okay, okay, since I drafted that yesterday I have calmed down some. I am aware that not every Yankees fan acts like the big stupid loudmouth at the end of the bar. But of course, those are the guys who get most of the attention, for obvious reasons. I humbly suggest that the rest of you Yankees fans police your fellow fans better, unless you all want to keep getting branded with the same iron.]
Yes, like the guy who asked me last week if I knew the price of a hot dog in Citi Field in October, in the hope that he could tell me that no one knows -- never mind that the last New York team to win the pennant was not named the New York Yankees, just saying. Or like the guy who thought it was "cute" that I was still wearing my Mets cap in September, when the Mets still had a shot at the Wild Card. Or like the guy who asked me how many decent Mets the Yankees might pick up after our collapse in 2016, and whether I thought they were worth the precious Yankee dollars or too injury-prone. (This last guy was not even trolling me; he had no idea he was being a condescending wanker until I suggested he commit seppuku with his own John Thompson, or words to that effect.) Or the blowhard who, a couple of years ago, when injuries decimated the Mets' starting pitching, would ask me how the Fragile Five were doing constantly. Or the dimwit who engaged me in a conversation about the relative superiority of his team and mine and, when he realized he was losing the argument, resorted to spitting "Twenty-seven, baby! Twenty-seven!" as if the number of past championships was relevant to the topic he had raised.
This is what it's like being a Mets fan. It's like having a big brother who was the star of everything while he was beating you up every single day. It extends outside the borders of the Bronx, the city, even the state. The sense of entitlement of the average Yankees fan makes the average Royal Family look like St. Francis. At their wizened little hearts they are like Derek Jeter casually taking an extra base after smashing Bryce Florie in the eye with a line drive and almost blinding him and definitely ruining his career. Jeter looked like it was just another day at the office after almost killing a guy. Because nothing else matters but winning, right?
Well, my friendly Yankees fans, I've complained here before that the Mets only get a shot every fifteen or so years at the title, and that's not the Yankees' fault (except maybe when a Yankees pitcher in the World Series should have been thrown out of a game but was not, because Yankees). But I hope that you will get to enjoy decades of futility now, like most other MLB teams, having had a shot this year and blown it. And after, say, thirty years of failure, maybe I will cry a Bronx River for you.
But don't count on it.
[Author's Note: Okay, okay, since I drafted that yesterday I have calmed down some. I am aware that not every Yankees fan acts like the big stupid loudmouth at the end of the bar. But of course, those are the guys who get most of the attention, for obvious reasons. I humbly suggest that the rest of you Yankees fans police your fellow fans better, unless you all want to keep getting branded with the same iron.]
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Mysterious museum mysteries!
My wife got us hooked on a show now running on the cable channel Destination America -- Mysteries at the Museum, hosted by sorta-rugged kinda-Indiana-Jonesy narrator Don Wildman. It's lots of fun and it caused an argument in the house.
The show originated on Discovery Inc.'s Travel Channel in 2010, and new episodes still run there. We've been catching up on years' worth of shows, and it makes for interesting and educational viewing. This, kiddies, was the kind of thing that fellow Discovery Inc. channel TLC used to air, back when its letters stood for The Learning Channel and not, as I imagine is currently the case, Theater of Lunatics or Childbearing. Each episode of Mysteries at the Museum focuses on several objects found in museums throughout the United States, with occasional visits to other countries, and the stories behind these objects. War, love, theft, murder, plague, science, accidents, chicanery, achievements -- everything is grist for the mill here.
There's no thematic connection to the objects shown in most episodes. A memorable one, at least for me, looked at the gun Squeaky Fromme used to try to kill President Ford, the mysterious Hodag of Wisconsin, and New York's own original Typhoid Mary, among other things. Each story gets about ten minutes of TV time, sometimes breaking for commercials on cliffhangers, and then it's off to the next museum and the next thing on display and what it means. I annoy my wife sometimes if I know what the story is when they start the discussion, as I am more of a student of history than she is. "Shut up! Don't give it away!" she says.
I think it's great. Wildman has the perfect sincerity as a narrator, and heck, Mike Rowe can't narrate everything. The enactments by actors who don't get any lines (thus no pay for speaking) are cheap and cheesy, but it's fun sometimes to see how the producers are going to re-create scenes from something as crazy as Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan's flight across the Atlantic. They showed the actor fighting the elements and a leaky fuel line in something that looked fine to me as the cockpit of a 1929 Curtiss Robin, but I would not be surprised if airplane experts were screaming at the TV screen.
It's cable. They do what they can.
The show gives context to objects on display, and makes one think more about the items one sees in a museum. I hope kids like it; I think I would have liked it when I was a kid. The stories are short enough for kids to follow, and sometimes people get shot and blown up 'n stuff, which is always cool. To begin to grasp the past, a kid has to learn the broad events, then start filling in the flavor of the time by following threads; this series is fun for that. Interviews with curators and other historians help make the stories come to life. Some episodes stretch the connection between something at a museum, like in the case with Corrigan -- the museum in question did not have Corrigan's plane but a similar one, and that gave them the excuse to run with the Corrigan story. Hey, a great story is a great story.
But a recently rerun episode on the Ball train watch caused an argument between my wife and me. The show said that the Ball's legendary timekeeping ability, important to prevent disasters like the 1891 Great Kipton Train Wreck, is what gave us the origin of the phrase "on the ball." I maintained that it's a sports expression, probably coming from baseball or maybe golf, where one must keep one's eye on the ball. The Internet strongly favors my interpretation, and the Ball company (now owned by a Hong Kong company but located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland) doesn't even mention this bit of legend on its Web site. So there! I win!
If you've never seen the show but you like history, check it out. They may make the occasional gaffe, but at least Mysteries at the Museum doesn't run with flat-out fabrications like some other cable channels I know.
The show originated on Discovery Inc.'s Travel Channel in 2010, and new episodes still run there. We've been catching up on years' worth of shows, and it makes for interesting and educational viewing. This, kiddies, was the kind of thing that fellow Discovery Inc. channel TLC used to air, back when its letters stood for The Learning Channel and not, as I imagine is currently the case, Theater of Lunatics or Childbearing. Each episode of Mysteries at the Museum focuses on several objects found in museums throughout the United States, with occasional visits to other countries, and the stories behind these objects. War, love, theft, murder, plague, science, accidents, chicanery, achievements -- everything is grist for the mill here.
There's no thematic connection to the objects shown in most episodes. A memorable one, at least for me, looked at the gun Squeaky Fromme used to try to kill President Ford, the mysterious Hodag of Wisconsin, and New York's own original Typhoid Mary, among other things. Each story gets about ten minutes of TV time, sometimes breaking for commercials on cliffhangers, and then it's off to the next museum and the next thing on display and what it means. I annoy my wife sometimes if I know what the story is when they start the discussion, as I am more of a student of history than she is. "Shut up! Don't give it away!" she says.
I think it's great. Wildman has the perfect sincerity as a narrator, and heck, Mike Rowe can't narrate everything. The enactments by actors who don't get any lines (thus no pay for speaking) are cheap and cheesy, but it's fun sometimes to see how the producers are going to re-create scenes from something as crazy as Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan's flight across the Atlantic. They showed the actor fighting the elements and a leaky fuel line in something that looked fine to me as the cockpit of a 1929 Curtiss Robin, but I would not be surprised if airplane experts were screaming at the TV screen.
It's cable. They do what they can.
The show gives context to objects on display, and makes one think more about the items one sees in a museum. I hope kids like it; I think I would have liked it when I was a kid. The stories are short enough for kids to follow, and sometimes people get shot and blown up 'n stuff, which is always cool. To begin to grasp the past, a kid has to learn the broad events, then start filling in the flavor of the time by following threads; this series is fun for that. Interviews with curators and other historians help make the stories come to life. Some episodes stretch the connection between something at a museum, like in the case with Corrigan -- the museum in question did not have Corrigan's plane but a similar one, and that gave them the excuse to run with the Corrigan story. Hey, a great story is a great story.
But a recently rerun episode on the Ball train watch caused an argument between my wife and me. The show said that the Ball's legendary timekeeping ability, important to prevent disasters like the 1891 Great Kipton Train Wreck, is what gave us the origin of the phrase "on the ball." I maintained that it's a sports expression, probably coming from baseball or maybe golf, where one must keep one's eye on the ball. The Internet strongly favors my interpretation, and the Ball company (now owned by a Hong Kong company but located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland) doesn't even mention this bit of legend on its Web site. So there! I win!
If you've never seen the show but you like history, check it out. They may make the occasional gaffe, but at least Mysteries at the Museum doesn't run with flat-out fabrications like some other cable channels I know.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Friday, October 18, 2019
Puffing away.
A friend of mine is trying to cut down on the smoking. It's become very hard to enjoy a cigarette these days, when you can’t smoke anywhere. She didn't want to go cold turkey or use Chantix or something, so she got one of those E-cigs. Here it is charging up, making the wall look like it's taking a relaxing nicotine break.
Of course, this made me think of my all-time favorite Tweet:
The E-cig shouldn't be confused with vaping, which has everyone across all political spectra running around with their dresses up over their heads. Vaping uses a small tank of liquid, and is essentially more like a small, handheld hookah than a cigarette; E-cigs or "cigalikes" look more typical cigarettes, have a tiny disposable cartridge or are entirely disposable, and more closely resemble cigarette smoking. Neither is good for you, but they have to be better than cigarettes.
Of course, the political class, following the lead of the health crowd, thinks you should not do any of this stuff. Don't stick anything in your lungs unless we tell you to! Such as that nice, soothing marijuana, which our state governments are generally slavering to legalize.
But this is the schizophrenic nature of modern society. When penalties for drunk driving were low, no liquor ads could be seen on TV. Now two DWIs are hard time and booze ads are everywhere. I'm not saying who's right, and it's never right to drink and drive (nor do I think people drive drunk more than they used to), but isn't there a sort of disconnect here?
Likewise with the vape thing. The CDC reports deaths and injuries attributed to vaping, but the news media seem to leave out the part that says:
All I can tell you is my friend is smoking fewer cigarettes thanks to her E-cig, which only contains one naughty ingredient (nicotine) that does not get you high or impair your ability to drive. If my friend goes over to only E-cig use, as planned, I know it will be easier for her to quit nicotine all together. Sounds like a social good to me.
But no, let's ban all the things! Except soma, of course.
Of course, this made me think of my all-time favorite Tweet:
The E-cig shouldn't be confused with vaping, which has everyone across all political spectra running around with their dresses up over their heads. Vaping uses a small tank of liquid, and is essentially more like a small, handheld hookah than a cigarette; E-cigs or "cigalikes" look more typical cigarettes, have a tiny disposable cartridge or are entirely disposable, and more closely resemble cigarette smoking. Neither is good for you, but they have to be better than cigarettes.
Of course, the political class, following the lead of the health crowd, thinks you should not do any of this stuff. Don't stick anything in your lungs unless we tell you to! Such as that nice, soothing marijuana, which our state governments are generally slavering to legalize.
But this is the schizophrenic nature of modern society. When penalties for drunk driving were low, no liquor ads could be seen on TV. Now two DWIs are hard time and booze ads are everywhere. I'm not saying who's right, and it's never right to drink and drive (nor do I think people drive drunk more than they used to), but isn't there a sort of disconnect here?
Likewise with the vape thing. The CDC reports deaths and injuries attributed to vaping, but the news media seem to leave out the part that says:
Most patients report a history of using tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products. The latest national and state findings suggest products containing THC, particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g. friends, family members, illicit dealers), are linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak.
(emphasis and rolling eyes added)And suddenly any kind of vaping or e-smoking is a national crisis. So they all should be outlawed. (See above paragraph on pot, and note that 33 states and DC have legalized pot for fun and profit. Here in the Hudson Valley, farms formerly known for onions and sweet corn are growing weed like, well, weeds. But we should be frantic over E-cigarettes.)
All I can tell you is my friend is smoking fewer cigarettes thanks to her E-cig, which only contains one naughty ingredient (nicotine) that does not get you high or impair your ability to drive. If my friend goes over to only E-cig use, as planned, I know it will be easier for her to quit nicotine all together. Sounds like a social good to me.
But no, let's ban all the things! Except soma, of course.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Always trying to get you to their pad.
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| "You know, Cin, on second thought, I don't like the look of this place." |
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Fred's Book Club: Ms. Plow.
Welcome to another edition of the Humpback Writers, the book feature that has "hump" in its name for neither medical nor prurient reasons, but only because it appears on Wednesday. And keep your minds out of the gutter, boys, because today we have a kids' picture book, the first book I ever read... OR DID I?
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton was first published in 1943 and has never been out of print. Burton was an illustrator as well as a writer, and I love her drawings on this and other stories. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is probably her most famous book, but she had others like this one and Maybelle the Cable Car, Calico the Wonder Horse, and The Little House, which was adapted as a cartoon by Disney, the first cartoon about urban sprawl I know of.
I always remembered, and not without some pride, that Katy and the Big Snow was the very first book I read all by myself, without help.
OR DID I?
Now, to tell this story, I guess I need to say SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to hear about what happens to Katy when the humongous blizzard socks in Geoppolis, then close the screen! Don't keep reading!
Okay, here's the deal.
I borrowed the book either from our nearest city library or from the library at school; I'm not sure but it was probably the local library, which was very small. I don't recall the elementary school library lending books, and I don't know that they would have to kids just learning to read, but the teacher may have lent them out. I remember standing in the hall of the house in which I grew up, trying to read the story aloud. It was very dramatic, you know, full of Burton's stylish and colorful art. The story was about Katy, a bulldozer in the summer and a snowplow in the winter, who was turfed out because of her age and replaced by new snowplows. Then the town gets whaled on by snow, and all the new plows break down, and Katy emerges from the garage to show she's still the strongest and toughest plow there is. Katy's heroic feat in the face of disparagement was inspiring to me, and I remembered it for decades.
Except that was not the story.
When I got the book as an adult, I was stunned to find out that the story had changed. Katy was stuck in the garage when the snow started, but only because the snow was not deep enough -- something I understand now but wouldn't have as a child. Plows usually don't clear snow until it's at least a couple of inches deep. So only when the snow gets really deep do they send out Katy, who frees the streets for emergency services and saves the town, as the Highway Department knew she would. No drama.
Whuh?!?!?
One of two things happened: Either they changed the story in later editions to make it less combative, more friendly, or I just thought I was reading the book and made up my own story by ripping off a plot from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all the other misfit-saves-the-day stories that were so popular for children. (By the time I was reading, the Biblical prophecy that "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" was so well-ingrained that, if I'd been a builder, I would have probably started my projects with the least-appropriate stones I could find.)
So I don't really think that they changed the story of Katy, although if anyone knows otherwise, please pass along the information. I give myself marks for writing my own story, as a means of covering up the fact that I actually could not read, or not much. I may have stolen some plot points, but that made me perfectly suitable to write for television.
But now I wonder what the first book I actually did read on my own was.
Anyway, hats off to Katy, who of course does save the day in the book. The book's lesson of quiet determination in the face of adversity is even better than the one I made up. Plus, it's got a great town map.
And I'll tell you one last thing -- to this day, whenever we have a blizzard, I think of this book, and how the snow got up to the second story windows and nothing in town could move.
Nothing, that is, except Katy! Chug! Chug! Chug!
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton was first published in 1943 and has never been out of print. Burton was an illustrator as well as a writer, and I love her drawings on this and other stories. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is probably her most famous book, but she had others like this one and Maybelle the Cable Car, Calico the Wonder Horse, and The Little House, which was adapted as a cartoon by Disney, the first cartoon about urban sprawl I know of.
I always remembered, and not without some pride, that Katy and the Big Snow was the very first book I read all by myself, without help.
OR DID I?
Now, to tell this story, I guess I need to say SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to hear about what happens to Katy when the humongous blizzard socks in Geoppolis, then close the screen! Don't keep reading!
Okay, here's the deal.
I borrowed the book either from our nearest city library or from the library at school; I'm not sure but it was probably the local library, which was very small. I don't recall the elementary school library lending books, and I don't know that they would have to kids just learning to read, but the teacher may have lent them out. I remember standing in the hall of the house in which I grew up, trying to read the story aloud. It was very dramatic, you know, full of Burton's stylish and colorful art. The story was about Katy, a bulldozer in the summer and a snowplow in the winter, who was turfed out because of her age and replaced by new snowplows. Then the town gets whaled on by snow, and all the new plows break down, and Katy emerges from the garage to show she's still the strongest and toughest plow there is. Katy's heroic feat in the face of disparagement was inspiring to me, and I remembered it for decades.
Except that was not the story.
When I got the book as an adult, I was stunned to find out that the story had changed. Katy was stuck in the garage when the snow started, but only because the snow was not deep enough -- something I understand now but wouldn't have as a child. Plows usually don't clear snow until it's at least a couple of inches deep. So only when the snow gets really deep do they send out Katy, who frees the streets for emergency services and saves the town, as the Highway Department knew she would. No drama.
Whuh?!?!?
One of two things happened: Either they changed the story in later editions to make it less combative, more friendly, or I just thought I was reading the book and made up my own story by ripping off a plot from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all the other misfit-saves-the-day stories that were so popular for children. (By the time I was reading, the Biblical prophecy that "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" was so well-ingrained that, if I'd been a builder, I would have probably started my projects with the least-appropriate stones I could find.)
So I don't really think that they changed the story of Katy, although if anyone knows otherwise, please pass along the information. I give myself marks for writing my own story, as a means of covering up the fact that I actually could not read, or not much. I may have stolen some plot points, but that made me perfectly suitable to write for television.
But now I wonder what the first book I actually did read on my own was.
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| Katy beats the ever-lovin' crap out of the snow, no prob |
Anyway, hats off to Katy, who of course does save the day in the book. The book's lesson of quiet determination in the face of adversity is even better than the one I made up. Plus, it's got a great town map.
And I'll tell you one last thing -- to this day, whenever we have a blizzard, I think of this book, and how the snow got up to the second story windows and nothing in town could move.
Nothing, that is, except Katy! Chug! Chug! Chug!
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Bucks for butts?
After much thought, I've decided to abandon my post about Columbus Day, which I mentioned yesterday. I would not have minded coming up with something half-assed, but I only came up with something quarter-assed. If you want that level of off-the-cuff, poorly considered punditry, you could just go to any mainstream news source. Vitamin Fred readers demand better!
But speaking of half-assery...
Our church needs to renovate its pews. To that end we've been doing a spare-change drive once a month. Over the decades the wear and tear has become pretty bad. Busted kneelers, torn upholstery, missing hymnal holders, everything you'd expect. The funds raised so far have exceeded my expectations -- I figured that the first month everyone'd empty the piggy banks and by month two we'd all be digging between the sofa cushions. But the take has been pretty steady. Maybe we're all just desperate to get the pews fixed. And of course, folding money is also accepted.
My one complaint is that we have no clever name for this campaign. Something zippy that would help keep the campaign top of mind when going about our days, collecting coins. Something like... oh, I don't know...
Pennies for Pews
Nickels for Kneelers
Jack for Backs
Bucks for Butts
Pesos for Posteriors
Treasure for Tushies
Quarters for Hindquarters
Dimes for Derrieres
Greenbacks for Backsides
Booty for Bootays
Dead Presidents for Duffs
Ka-Ching! for Keisters
Riches for Rears
Loot for the Boot
Feed the Kitty for Sittin' Pretty!
Uh...
What you got?
But speaking of half-assery...
Our church needs to renovate its pews. To that end we've been doing a spare-change drive once a month. Over the decades the wear and tear has become pretty bad. Busted kneelers, torn upholstery, missing hymnal holders, everything you'd expect. The funds raised so far have exceeded my expectations -- I figured that the first month everyone'd empty the piggy banks and by month two we'd all be digging between the sofa cushions. But the take has been pretty steady. Maybe we're all just desperate to get the pews fixed. And of course, folding money is also accepted.
My one complaint is that we have no clever name for this campaign. Something zippy that would help keep the campaign top of mind when going about our days, collecting coins. Something like... oh, I don't know...
Nickels for Kneelers
Jack for Backs
Bucks for Butts
Pesos for Posteriors
Treasure for Tushies
Quarters for Hindquarters
Dimes for Derrieres
Greenbacks for Backsides
Booty for Bootays
Dead Presidents for Duffs
Ka-Ching! for Keisters
Riches for Rears
Loot for the Boot
Feed the Kitty for Sittin' Pretty!
Uh...
What you got?
Monday, October 14, 2019
No blog?
I apologize for the lack of a genuine blog entry today. Yesterday I was with a friend of mine and his birth mom who had been separated from each other for decades. They lived about 250 miles away and neither knew where the other was for a very long time.
This was pretty powerful stuff.
She had given him up when she was 17. You can say what you want about the social mores of the sixties, when that occurred, but in modern times it's still not a good idea to have a child at 17. The funny thing is, neither of them were railing against the society that caused them to be parted. They spoke about their own feelings, like having a piece missing for fifty years that has now snapped into place.
I don't know that I'd say everyone was crying, but everyone sure seemed to get pretty misty. Maybe that was just me.
By the time that was over, the dogs were demanding attention, and with one thing and another, the blog entry I'd planned for today did not get written. Oh, it was a good one. In fact, I hope to run it tomorrow.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed your weekend at least as much as I enjoyed mine. The wife is off from work today, but your Friendly Neighborhood Freelance Editor will be grinding out two pieces that I've gotten sick of in the last week. Fingers crossed they will be out the door by tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: Things have not progressed today as planned, so tomorrow's blog entry is liable to be brief and not at all the thoughtful essay I'd hoped. But it will still brighten your day with your dose of Vitamin Fred, which four out of four fictional doctors recommend for better health! And vim!
This was pretty powerful stuff.
She had given him up when she was 17. You can say what you want about the social mores of the sixties, when that occurred, but in modern times it's still not a good idea to have a child at 17. The funny thing is, neither of them were railing against the society that caused them to be parted. They spoke about their own feelings, like having a piece missing for fifty years that has now snapped into place.
I don't know that I'd say everyone was crying, but everyone sure seemed to get pretty misty. Maybe that was just me.
 |
| You're not crying, I'm crying! Oh, wait... |
By the time that was over, the dogs were demanding attention, and with one thing and another, the blog entry I'd planned for today did not get written. Oh, it was a good one. In fact, I hope to run it tomorrow.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed your weekend at least as much as I enjoyed mine. The wife is off from work today, but your Friendly Neighborhood Freelance Editor will be grinding out two pieces that I've gotten sick of in the last week. Fingers crossed they will be out the door by tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: Things have not progressed today as planned, so tomorrow's blog entry is liable to be brief and not at all the thoughtful essay I'd hoped. But it will still brighten your day with your dose of Vitamin Fred, which four out of four fictional doctors recommend for better health! And vim!
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Saturday in October.
Had some business yesterday that required a drive out into the country, quite a ways from home in the beautiful Hudson Valley. The weather was fantastic -- cool trending to warm, sunny, and the trees were about at October peak.
I get a lot out of these drives, and I actually had some time to kill. The funny thing is, a drive in the country on a weekend would have been so BORING when I was a kid -- omigod, are you trying to kill me with boredom?!?!?! Because I was stupid and thought there was nothing worth mention beyond the city limits. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, stupid in this regard.
Now I find it a real joy to be out where the traffic is light and the sky is visible. Rural areas and small towns look awfully good to me. I can understand why young people might want to flee their hometowns -- except for Hallmark movies, the media always tells them that small towns are spooky and creepy, places of mental illness and abuse and weird authority figures that may kill you, or barring that just bore you to death.
And there are some things I would have found very frustrating if I were a young man in such a place. I could have gone to New York and started a brilliant career! (He says with hollow laughter.) I could have met all kinds of amazing city women! (Ditto that.) And if I got thrown out of the one bar in town, the next one would have been miles away, with fifteen state troopers and sheriff's deputies staked out in between!
I can't tell you what Rural Fred would have been like, but I know that he doesn't feel that way now. I've known plenty of folks who did come to New York to pursue a dream, and even got on that ladder up, but decided they didn't like all the crap that came with it. They may not have moved back home, but perhaps to a city close to the town in which they grew up.
And hey, I did something yesterday that I never did before -- filled up in a Sinclair gas station!
Sinclairs may be thick on the ground where you are, but in southern New York it's always been Mobil, Exxon, Hess, Texaco, Chevron, Sunoco, Gulf, Shell, and a few others, not all of which are still around. Maybe that's why Sinclair decided to make a move into the area. And look, they brought a brontosaurus!
I drove through a couple of small cities, too. At first, on display, was all the dysfunction associated with such places -- crippled and neglected elderly with no support, hopeless teens in tumbledown houses, empty storefronts, half-empty strip malls, half-empty old A&P building (always recognizable), crappy roads, drug-addled knuckleheads, miscellaneous layabouts, people who all looked like they dressed at the Goodwill's bargain basement, whose dogs looked like they spent 90 percent of their time buried in mud (and liked it). But second glance showed parts of town that were active, industrious, and well-kept, blocks of stores and restaurants, people with busy kids, and grand old town structures still in use. People can cherry-pick whatever they like in a place like that to make a point. I can say that I'd feel safer walking through any part of that town than in half of New York City.
On a more seasonal note, I did see some great Halloween displays. My favorite:
But not at the local Lowe's, at which I saw virtually no Halloween stuff, but a whale of a lot of this:
Aieeee!! Now THAT's scary.
I get a lot out of these drives, and I actually had some time to kill. The funny thing is, a drive in the country on a weekend would have been so BORING when I was a kid -- omigod, are you trying to kill me with boredom?!?!?! Because I was stupid and thought there was nothing worth mention beyond the city limits. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, stupid in this regard.
Now I find it a real joy to be out where the traffic is light and the sky is visible. Rural areas and small towns look awfully good to me. I can understand why young people might want to flee their hometowns -- except for Hallmark movies, the media always tells them that small towns are spooky and creepy, places of mental illness and abuse and weird authority figures that may kill you, or barring that just bore you to death.
And there are some things I would have found very frustrating if I were a young man in such a place. I could have gone to New York and started a brilliant career! (He says with hollow laughter.) I could have met all kinds of amazing city women! (Ditto that.) And if I got thrown out of the one bar in town, the next one would have been miles away, with fifteen state troopers and sheriff's deputies staked out in between!
I can't tell you what Rural Fred would have been like, but I know that he doesn't feel that way now. I've known plenty of folks who did come to New York to pursue a dream, and even got on that ladder up, but decided they didn't like all the crap that came with it. They may not have moved back home, but perhaps to a city close to the town in which they grew up.
And hey, I did something yesterday that I never did before -- filled up in a Sinclair gas station!
 |
| I got DINOCARE! |
Sinclairs may be thick on the ground where you are, but in southern New York it's always been Mobil, Exxon, Hess, Texaco, Chevron, Sunoco, Gulf, Shell, and a few others, not all of which are still around. Maybe that's why Sinclair decided to make a move into the area. And look, they brought a brontosaurus!
I drove through a couple of small cities, too. At first, on display, was all the dysfunction associated with such places -- crippled and neglected elderly with no support, hopeless teens in tumbledown houses, empty storefronts, half-empty strip malls, half-empty old A&P building (always recognizable), crappy roads, drug-addled knuckleheads, miscellaneous layabouts, people who all looked like they dressed at the Goodwill's bargain basement, whose dogs looked like they spent 90 percent of their time buried in mud (and liked it). But second glance showed parts of town that were active, industrious, and well-kept, blocks of stores and restaurants, people with busy kids, and grand old town structures still in use. People can cherry-pick whatever they like in a place like that to make a point. I can say that I'd feel safer walking through any part of that town than in half of New York City.
On a more seasonal note, I did see some great Halloween displays. My favorite:
But not at the local Lowe's, at which I saw virtually no Halloween stuff, but a whale of a lot of this:
Aieeee!! Now THAT's scary.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Carts.
When the sun sets on the parking lot
And the stores close one by one
The shopping carts all cluster
To have a night of fun
Under the lights when it's quiet
And no human being is seen
The carts race about like a cheetah
Or some kind of crazy machine
They roll all over the car lines
Popping wheelies wherever they like
They zoom along on just two wheels
Like a dumb drunken nut on a bike
They dash all over the tarmac
And like demo derbies they smash
They rattle and jangle and mangle
And race toward each other to crash
In the morning, no store can find them
Each stops with the sun as it rolls
The Walmarts are over by Target
And the Dollar Trees, stuck out by Kohl's
The carts from the Lowe's are all missing
Pier 1's never showed up for work
Upside-down in the bushes by Staples
Are two baskets from Dooney & Bourke
I hope they had fun in the darkness
I would not be a mad malcontent
But you see, this is why every cart has
One wheel that is broken and bent
Friday, October 11, 2019
HGTV's Flintstone Home!
HGTV NEWSWIRE
Discovery Communications, New York City, October 11, 2019 -- The HGTV cable network enjoyed amazing success last month with its special series, A Very Brady Renovation, in which members of the original cast of The Brady Bunch TV show helped turn the actual house that was used for exterior shots on the original 1969-1974 series into a duplicate inside of the television show's sets. Now, in our next series, HGTV uses its massive resources and limitless talent to take on an even tougher challenge: A Very Flintstone Renovation-rock!
Drew Scott of The Property Brothers made the announcement this morning at a press conference at Discovery offices in Manhattan. "There's no more iconic TV sitcom home than the one inhabited by the titular family of The Flintstones, in the town of Bedrock," he said, referring to the 1960-1966 series. "To have the opportunity to renovate this home with the rest of the HGTV family of designers is a dream come true."
"It's a wonderful project, but it has some serious challenges," said Mina Starsiak of the show Good Bones. "For one, everything in it is made of rock, except the front door. Stonework is especially expensive and difficult to install. For another, none of the appliances run on electricity; many are animal-powered or just seem to work on nothing at all. How we're going to handle that is an amazing story itself!"
Lara Spencer, star of Flea Market Flip, added, "Saber-tooth tiger lampshades and leopard curtains may be tricky. But bird record-players and can openers, mammoth showers and vacuum cleaners -- we're not just looking to match knickknacks this time!"
Matt James, former host of one of our many failed yard-based shows, added, "The Flintstone landscaping is a real nightmare. After all, prehistoric plants in strange colors are not just available down at the local garden store! We realllllly have to reach on that one! We called exotic florists, university biologists, Steven Spielberg, everyone. It was incredible!"
Jonathan Scott, the brother who does all the actual work on The Property Brothers, also noted some unusual difficulties in dealing with a cartoon house. "To make it match the interior on the television show, we needed to be able to run through the house and pass the same background objects over and over again. Well, the house appears to be no more than forty feet deep, but we'd have to be able to run for at least five hundred yards."
Scott laughed and added, "I guess back in the sixties, they just didn't worry about these things."
In a crossover episode of the Discovery Channel's hit series Fast 'n Loud, host Richard Rawlings will attempt to build the Flintstone family car and make it run without the courtesy of Fred's two feet.
As with the Brady house renovation, the producers had hoped that the original cast members would be able to participate in the renovation. Sadly, they are all dead, having passed away in the paleolithic age or something. It turned out there are surviving cast members from the 1971 Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, but nobody likes that cartoon. There were two live-action Flintstones movies, released in 1994 and 2000, but that might mean working with Rosie O'Donnell, and no one wanted to take that chance.
"We don't want any unpleasantness," said HGTV president Jane Latman, "We want this to be a yabba-dabba-doo time. In fact, a dabba-doo time."
"We'll have a gay old time!" added My Lottery Dream Home's David Bromstad.
"It's a really tough reno," said Steve Ford of Restored by the Fords, speaking to reporters afterward, "but I promise you one thing -- when we're done, that cat will stay out for the night!"
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Maybe this time it will work!
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| "Oh, no! Arty fern-bar line drawing! Fred's trying to do cartoons for The New Yorker again!" |
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
Fred's Book Club: Kahn!
Welcome once again to our Wednesday book club, the Humpback Writers club, where we pull out a book I've read and discuss it (no actual humps required). I am not expecting anyone to read these books, which are not always recommended, although today's is.
Since it's that time of year for America's pastime to shine, which is of course Rooting for the Yankees to Fail (YOU STUPID TWINS! DOWN TWINKLES ON YOU!), I thought we might look at a classic by beloved baseball writer Roger Kahn.
The first book that anyone reads by Roger Kahn, of course, is The Boys of Summer, his brilliant 1972 history of the 1955 World Series-winning Brooklyn Dodgers. Except me. I read that book later, but the first book of his I read was about another important team: The Utica Blue Sox.
Good Enough to Dream (first published 1985) is about the year that Kahn bought the Class A franchise in Utica, New York, a team in the still-extant New York-Penn League that was unaffiliated with a Major League Baseball farm system. Because of that, the Blue Sox were made up of career minor leaguers and rookies who were not really considered prospects (the image of minor league teams being stocked with washed-up old-timers was long out of date by the early eighties). As Kahn details in his story, minor league ownership, especially at such a low level, is a labor of love. No one is getting rich but lots of guys lose money, and all of them have to work and promote hard. Not being affiliated with an MLB team had the advantage that none of the players would be called up during the short (June to September) season, but the disadvantage that there was no support from a wealthy club, no rehabbing big leaguers to draw fans. And there were horror stories about independent teams that ran out of money and forfeited games because they couldn't buy baseballs, or took the team on a road trip and had no money for food, all of which Kahn admits probably should have scared him off: "According to people in baseball organizations, running an independent team was moving into a neighborhood beyond redemption."
And speaking of which, Kahn came to own the club this way: a violent mugging in Fun City, a.k.a. New York. Following this, Kahn was in pain and for a long stretch unable to sit and use his typewriter. During his convalescence he was talking with some colleagues about what he could do, and the idea arose that, the Dodgers not being for sale (or in Brooklyn anymore), he might consider buying a minor league team if the financing could be secured.
After many, many false starts, they wound up with the unaffiliated team in Utica: "They had not become independent on ideological and practical grounds, like the thirteen colonies two hundred years before. They were independent because no major league organization wanted to claim them. Even the Falkland Islands were being claimed. Nobody wanted the Utica Blue Sox." But ultimately, Kahn did.
The title of the book comes from the woman who was the team's general manager for the club in 1983.
"We'll have everything fixed up in a few days," Joanne Gerace promised. "It'll look real nice."
So this was my ball park. After all the joyous times at Ebbetts Field and Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium, I was assigning myself to work in an elephant graveyard.
"A little paint and some weeding," Joanne continued.
She stopped. "Bad, isn't it?"
I attempted to cheer myself by closing my thoughts to the drying mud and shaggy weeds. I imagined athletes performing on this wasteland.
"These fellows I hear are coming back," I said. "Hendershot, Jacoby. Moretti. Coyle. Are they really major league prospects? How good are they?"
Joanne stood on her high heels in the infield and thought for a while. Then she said, "They're good enough to dream."
One of the many memorable moments in the book comes early on, when Gattis, the grumpy manager -- thirty-one-year-old drill-sergeant grumpy, not Wilford Brimley grumpy -- is trying to teach his squad the signals they intend to use. The system of signs is baffling to the crew, as the signs are situational and the same sign might mean something different depending on the count. He is failing to get through to them.
"Look," he said, "these signs are pretty complicated. Maybe they're too complicated for all of us. So instead of using the ones that I've been showing, we'll just use voice signs this year. Like this."There are times in business meetings where I wanted to pull a Gattis.
Gattis cupped his strong, hitter's hands about his mouth and bellowed over the heads of his players down the orange corridor of the W.P.A. clubhouse.
"Swing!"
"Steal!"
"Take!"
"Bunt!"
"Did everybody get those okay?" this fierce manager asked mildly.
Late in the book, when the club is a serious contender for the league title, Kahn breaks down the situation the way only a veteran of it could:
The fans imagined the Blue Sox as a gallant band of brothers, everyone supporting everybody else, smiling and heroic in the shared bounty of the glory.... The reality of the Blue Sox, as pressure increased and the season waned, when any mistake could be our undoing, when rival egos clashed with clangor and shouts, when everyone felt that his manhood lay on the line with each night's game, when the terror of a misplay loomed as large as hope of victory, was too much to explain to civilians, even if they had wanted to hear it, which they did not.
The book is full of interesting incidents, delightful to any fan of the game; it doesn't matter if you never heard of any of these guys. You also get some fun facts about the city of Utica, an hour and a half west of Albany -- and a place I've been two a couple of times, all because of this book.
Early in my so-called publishing career I worked for a man who was a huge baseball fan, and recommended Good Enough to Dream. I remember him writing the title and author's name on one of those little pieces of notepaper that he favored for leaving me instructions. I loved the book, and I somehow got some of my friends interested in making a weekend trip up to see a Blue Sox game at the very place, Murnane Field, described by Kahn. This was several years after Kahn had sold his involvement with the club. The park looked pretty good; no elephant graveyard.
The second time I went to Utica I traveled with a fellow writer. We wanted to write a story about minor league ball, and were traveling to teams in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. That time we interviewed the then-current owner of the Blue Sox, a guy named Fowler, who was helping direct cars in the parking lot when we met him. By then the Blue Sox did have an MLB affiliation, the Chicago White Sox. We asked Fowler about Kahn's ownership of the team. "He just owned it for a year," he sneered. "Got his book out of it."
We never wrote the piece, but we did drink a lot of beer.
The Blue Sox were affiliated later with the Red Sox and the Marlins and then... nothing after 2001. The NYP League franchise left Utica for good, or for as long as anything is permanent in Class A ball. But now a new Utica Blue Sox team plays at the same park in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. They've tried other names for Utica teams, but they always come back to the Blue Sox.
One little trivia note -- minor league teams used to be named for their parent club; the NY-Penn League had teams like the Oneonta Tigers and the Pittsfield Mets. Later, teams found they could sell a lot more jerseys if the teams had good, regional nicknames, regardless of the parent club. The league now has teams like the Williamsport Crosscutters and the Vermont Lake Monsters. This phenomenon seems to have occurred in the minors all over the country now, and I applaud it.
If you like baseball and can get hold of Good Enough to Dream, I think you'll enjoy it a lot. Kahn is a terrific writer, even if not a dedicated owner, and he tells the story well. I'm sure some things about owning a minor league team have changed in the last thirty-six years, but probably not the main ones -- money problems, personal squabbling, tough competitors, and dreams. That's baseball.
The Mets are the team that captured me in childhood, but thanks to Kahn's book, and the trips I made with my friends, the Utica Blue Sox will always be among the boys of summer to me.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Stamp Fred.
I'm not some stuck-up Hollywood type like Steve Martin, who famously requested a funeral like ol' King Tut at his passing. No, I'll be satisfied if the United States Post Office issues a Fred Key stamp in honor of my long career in writing and editing the English language and, uh, complaining about things on this blog.
Now, before any of you get any funny ideas about me wanting a stamp because I want the whole world to lick my backside, remember that the stamps are self-adhesive now. Maybe I just want to stick around!
Ha-ha!
Never mind.
What brought this on was seeing some Batman stamps recently, stamps I had not noticed but the USPS issued in 2014. Hey, Batman is great and all, but he is a fictional character. I think I have that all over him. I may suck by comparison in so many ways, but hey, at least I'm real.
In fact, the government may wish to go the extra mile with this project and make the Fred Commemorative Coin. This idea is one I also endorse. And hey, maybe it's time to give the dollar coin a shot again.
So, I added some hair on the obverse. Sue me.
The question is, since a coin, unlike a stamp, has a back, what should be on it? Not my rear end; that's silly. Funny, but silly. My childhood home? A portrait of me holding the flag? A pile of old computers that I've burned through? An angry mob with pitchforks? You know, I kind of like that last one.
I'll be glad to take suggestions. What would go on the reverse of the Fred Key coin? Make sure to let me know, and then write to the United States Treasury Department to get them on the job. I'm not going to last forever, you know, and the way I feel today, I think they'd better get started! Oy, my achin' back!
Now, before any of you get any funny ideas about me wanting a stamp because I want the whole world to lick my backside, remember that the stamps are self-adhesive now. Maybe I just want to stick around!
Ha-ha!
Never mind.
What brought this on was seeing some Batman stamps recently, stamps I had not noticed but the USPS issued in 2014. Hey, Batman is great and all, but he is a fictional character. I think I have that all over him. I may suck by comparison in so many ways, but hey, at least I'm real.
In fact, the government may wish to go the extra mile with this project and make the Fred Commemorative Coin. This idea is one I also endorse. And hey, maybe it's time to give the dollar coin a shot again.
The question is, since a coin, unlike a stamp, has a back, what should be on it? Not my rear end; that's silly. Funny, but silly. My childhood home? A portrait of me holding the flag? A pile of old computers that I've burned through? An angry mob with pitchforks? You know, I kind of like that last one.
I'll be glad to take suggestions. What would go on the reverse of the Fred Key coin? Make sure to let me know, and then write to the United States Treasury Department to get them on the job. I'm not going to last forever, you know, and the way I feel today, I think they'd better get started! Oy, my achin' back!
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