Bad New Year's I have known.

I've been thinking back to New Year's Eves of the past, partly because I am thinking this could be the first year since toddlerhood that I don't make it to midnight. I've been dragging around all week, the weather is gloomy, I'm still on the anti-neuropathy drug that makes me sleepy, and I have two dogs that will want to be up early in the morning no matter how late I stay up at night. And let's face it--I ain't no kid anymore. Who is? If you were ten in 2000 you're in your thirties now. 

Looking back, I realized that while I had some great New Year's -- a couple of parties were legendary, including one we threw while our parents were out of town -- a lot of them were pretty bad. 

Times Square, 1937. No, I wasn't there. I've never been there for New Year's. 

One year I spent New Year's in a dumpy hotel in New Jersey with my parents. It was supposed to be a party atmosphere, but it actually seemed to suck joy right out of the air. Passing cars would feel a joy drain. Another year, when my folks were older and living in Florida, I was visiting for the holidays. Both of my folks were asleep by ten, right in their chairs. I loved my parents, but they weren't a ball of fire to be with for a young guy on New Year's Eve. 

On the other hand, as I've gotten older myself, I'm no ball of fire either. I enjoyed watching the Thin Man marathon on TCM for a few years with my wife; they skipped it last year but are back to it tonight. I also thought of a New Year's long ago when I just hung around with a friend's younger cousin all night, talking about comics, Dungeons & Dragons, playing video games, and watching TV (1967's Camelot was on, and as bad as I'd always heard). He was a good kid. We met up again a few New Year's Eves later but it wasn't the same; his interests had drifted and so had mine. 

Good or bad, though, one thing I have always done on New Year's is make it to midnight, at least since I was a little kid. Not sure about tonight. I guess we'll see. But I expect to be here on the 2022 side of things, and God willing it will be a good year for all of us.  

I feel the same way.

 

Seeking the smartness.

When I saw this in the store, I thought, Smartfood has kind of lost the thread here.

What on earth could be smart about Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries? 

We'll get back to that shortly. First, a little backgrounder about the history of the Smartfood brand.

Back in 1988, Inc. magazine had a profile on the upstart Smartfood:

It did not come out of the R&D department of Borden or Frito-Lay. Years of expensive consumer testing did not produce this popcorn, which, if truth be known, was originally intended as mere bag filler for a new concept in snack-food packaging. No, this popcorn came from Ann Withey's kitchen stove. Withey, 21, perfected the recipe after fooling around with dozens of different combinations of ingredients. She then fed the results to her 29-year-old husband, Andrew Martin, and their 26-year-old friend and business associate, Ken Meyers. Martin and Meyers thought it tasted swell. They also thought it would make a very smart idea for an all-natural snack food -- so smart they decided to name it Smartfood.

Frito-Lay may not have created Smartfood, but the company bought it in 1989 for $15 million. Anne Withey went on to found Annie's Homegrown, with rabbit Bernie as its mascot, which went public, and was ultimately sold General Mills for $820 million. What an American success story!  

Smartfood was smart for them. But is Smartfood smart for the rest of us? Their pitch was always that it was all-natural, not that it was a diet food, after all, or a panacea in popcorn form. And yet consumers, myself included, have always tended to think of Smartfood products as borderline health food, or at least a healthier alternative to other snacks.  

I looked at some labels. The original white cheddar Smartfood popcorn has 160 calories per 2.5-cup serving and 10 grams of fat (2 of those saturated). A tenth of your sodium intake is also taken care of for the day. That actually is no better than one serving of Lay's potato chips, which has the same amount of calories but less fat and sodium. However, one serving of chips is 15 chips, which will probably be hoovered up a lot faster than 2.5 cups of popcorn. Then look at Orville Redenbacher's fattest popcorn, his Movie Theater Butter variety; a serving of that is 5.5 cups, but if you could stop at 2.5 cups, you'd have fewer calories and less sodium than with Smartfood, but a little more saturated fat. I guess the dairy makes all the difference. 

Really, there's nothing particularly smart about Smartfood, and we'd all be better off eating plain popcorn or no snacks at all. But who wants that? Anyway, we've all gotten fatter since the brand premiered, so our overall fitness smartness has fallen.

Let's cut the chatter and see how bad this Cap'n Crunch version of Smartfood is, shall we? 

It's not exactly loaded with Crunch Berries. Not that sweet, surprisingly. 

Here's the nutritional data:

It's a little deceiving, because the serving size is 3/4 cup less than the regular Smartfood cheese popcorn. Why is that? No one can say. Well, they could -- they make the serving size smaller to make the nutrition data look better. But no one will say that. 

However, I think it does compare well to regular cheesy Smartfood. Moreover, the popcorn itself is not all that sweet. If you want a really sweet popcorn snack, you'd do better with kettle corn. Popcorn Indiana's kettle corn is 130 calories for only 1.5 cups, which means there's barely a dime's worth of difference between that and this Crunch Berry Smartfood. And 1 cup of Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries cereal itself is 150 calories, with 32% added sugars (vs. 12% for the Smartfood CB serving). Lesson: If you're craving Crunch Berries, Smartfood is the smarter option. And like all popcorn, it's hard to stop eating once you start. It took just two days for me and my wife to finish this bag. (And she'd scoffed at me for buying it.)

In a way you could call this smart food, then, or at least it compares favorably with other Crunch Berry and sugared popcorn products, and with cheesy popcorn products. But I think the only really smart thing about Smartfood was that the inventors got $15 million out of Pepsi for the brand five years after a disastrous launch, and went on to create an even huger brand with Annie's Homegrown. Someone's smart around here, but it ain't me. 

Silence is golden?

In the supermarket halls
A bin of dog toys calls

A bunch of wiener dogs in Christmas cheer.

They are long and they are grinning

Like they've had too much fun sinning

Full of fluff for teeth and squeaking for the ear.

Let us get one for the puppy!

He's so super-pepper-uppy

These are just the kind of thing that he will use!

He'll nuzzle it and bite it

He will massacre and fight it

And then meanwhile he will not chew on my shoes. 

On the morning of the day

As the humans ply their way

Down for coffee and prepare to find their stuff,

Here comes puppy all a-seething

Acting like he still is teething

And it looks like he is fixin' to play rough.

He's a crazy little boy!

Someone quick! Throw him his toy!

Tell him it was sent here to him by some elf!

Let him rip apart and caper!

Let him tear apart the paper!

He can open up the present by himself. 

It's the toy that he's undoing

And he sets right into chewing

Like this thing's a meal for hungry carnivores!

There's a foot off and a nose!

There's an ear--and there it goes!

Within minutes there is fluff upon the floors.

Puppy had a bunch of fun

As he ripped apart the one

Big present Santa left him as his treat. 

And while he enjoyed the violence

I know I enjoyed the silence

From the satisfied young golden at my feet.

A famous trio.

Trois Poules Françaises, Boulevard des Oiseaux, Paris, 1902

 

The Christmas shoes.

I Ho-Ho-hope you made out well from Santa for Christmas. I did, thanks! I got a skateboard and a G.I. Joe and a pony!

No, actually, but I was very happy to get (among other things) a new pair of L.L. Bean duck shoes, also known as their Rubber Moc Bean Boots.

My wife got me a pair years ago, and they proved exceptionally useful. Easy to slip on for runs outside with the dog; kept my feet dry in all weather except snow that came up over the top of the shoes; and able to handle my strap-on spikes for ice. 

The old pair lasted for years. In fact, I would still be wearing them if not for Izzy the Pup Wonder. 

The Artist at Work

Izzy takes his time about wrecking toys, but is fast as lightning about destroying my shoes. This is pair #3 that he has wasted. Tralfaz got one of my old pairs of boat shoes years ago and ate up the shoelaces (leather pisgetti!), but as you can see, Izzy is truly indiscriminate about how he annihilates the footwear, as long as he annihilates it. Pull up the lining, chomp off the toe--whatever works. 

I have to be careful to keep my new shoes out of his reach. 

On a similar note, I got my wife a new rug for the family room. I was lucky to get a duplicate of the rug that's in there now. Why? Because Izzy is slowly destroying the one that's there now, and she's quite fond of it. 

We think that maybe he smells our late dog Nipper on it. But more likely he just likes to chew anything that doesn't chew him first. Last night he destroyed a tube of Aquaphor while no one was looking.

The plan is to not put the new rug down until Izzy is older, wiser, more obedient, and has had his little surgery. We hope that by then he'll be less inclined to ruin things.

🎅🥾🤶👢🎄👞

P.S.: Biggest surprise of the day -- my wife, a longtime defender of circus peanuts, got a bag in her stocking. She triple-dog dared me to try one. And... I liked it. I've spent years hating on the circus peanut but I liked it. I'm so ashamed. 

I will; not, however, eat candy corn. For those waxy, tasteless nubs, my mouth is a bridge too far.  

P.P.S.: If you're wondering how I wrapped a 5x7' rug, I didn't. It's still rolled up, wrapped in plastic, hiding in the cellar. I wrapped a picture of it from the Web site. 

Boroughs of holly.

To the tune of "Christmas in Killarney," it's "Christmas in the Boroughs," for those of us who grew up in the city but not in the City:

The freakin' songs, the freakin' tree
The hum of the wheels on the BQE
It's Christmas in the Boroughs
With all of the folks at home

In Dyker Heights, there ain't no fights
Some guys put up a billion lights
So you 'n me, we'll take the D
And hope we don't get mugged

The door is always open
The goombahs come for lunch
Canarsie John, before he's gone
Will throw a Sunday punch

The night is dark|
We'll light a spark
And drink some Natty in the park
It's Christmas in the Boroughs
With all of the folks at home

Christmas in the Boroughs
Is sometimes kinda squalid
But Santa's my compadre 
And he'll do me a solid

Our songs are sung
We're havin' fun
And no one's callin' 9-1-1
It's Christmas in the Boroughs
With all of the folks at home

The freakin' songs, the freakin' tree
The hum of the wheels on the BQE....

I'm handin' you no bull---
No matter where you roam
It's Christmas in the Boroughs
With all of the folks at home.

Christmas Eve thoughts.

1) I had considered doing a bit about Dr. Fauci declaring Santa Claus to be a one-man super-spreader event, but you know what? It's not even fun to make fun of that egomaniacal stuffed shirt anymore. In a just world, a bureaucrat having long outlived any purpose but service to his own self-importance would have been thrown into the street years ago--Go see some actual patients, Dr. Science!--but we don't live in a just world. Being Christmastime I will wish him a healthy retirement, starting as soon as humanly possible.

Okay, he's the Grinch. I'm so done with this guy.

2) It's strange that I didn't see one single Christmas special this year. Didn't really miss them, either. Granted, with some old favorites shuffling around cable channels or even streaming services, it's harder than usual to catch them. Things that were Appointment TV for kids when I was a kid are just part of the child's 24/7 media circus now. Over the years shows like Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town went from great joy to nostalgia to poking fun to nostalgia and poking fun to--I've seen it enough, maybe. Although it's always worth checking in on Rudolph to see if this is the year they digitally remove Yukon Cornelius's revolver and edit his shopping list ("cornmeal, gunpowder, ham hocks, and guitar strings"). 

3) Christmas on a Saturday feels kind of weird. Is Friday a holiday or not? Not for me, but I'm a freelancer. My wife got it as a floating holiday. We have trash pickup today. It's a federal holiday, but the post office lists Christmas Day as a holiday in 2021 but says it falls on Friday. So I have no idea if the mail is coming today. Glad to say the packages I shipped on Monday did arrive at their destinations intact and unmolested by porch pirates. I don't know what's going on, but I'm staying away from the stores, that's for sure.

4) I did take baby Izzy, my 70-pound seven-month old, with me on my rounds the other day. We saw a housebound friend, got his anti-flea-tick-etc. drug from the vet, and went to PetSmart--Izzy's first trip to a retail establishment. He was very excited. I was a little sad that no one said how cute he was or wanted to pet him; he's a Golden, for goodness sake, and was smiling and happy. Everyone just seemed grumpy. Well, I hope their days got better. Iz had fun anyhow. 

5) Little snow this morning; not much but enough to make old dude Tralfaz happy. He loves to romp in snow, eat snow, pee in snow, stick his head in snow, etc. etc. And for Izzy it's just his second experience with snow and he's enthralled. I'm glad for them. I'm freezing.

And so Christmas is about to descend, but I'll post tomorrow. God bless us, everybody! (Tiny Tim is suing for copyright infringement this year.) 

The Thursday before Christmas.

This is without question the latest I have ever been in getting my decorations up. 

As I was saying last week, I've been very busy with work, and the new puppy is still in a destructive-slash-separation anxiety stage. He knows that if he wants attention and whining isn't doing the job, he can just start destroying something and attention will follow. He probably is aware that trouble follows too, but he'd rather have bad attention than none at all. He's at the Judd Nelson in Breakfast Club stage.

For the first time in my life I am not concerned that everything is up, though. If some ornaments don't make it to a tree, sucks to be them. I refuse to be dragged into any Toy Story-like imaginings, seeing weepy Christmas specials like The Little Forgotten Ornament in my mind's eye. They are inanimate objects and they can stay in the box for one year. If the tree looks finished, it's finished.

The promised cookies are still just that as well--promised. Looks like I'll be making them on Christmas Day now, which is fine. I'll be in the kitchen anyway, doing a roasted beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes and Grandma's secret spinach recipe. Some say Grandma should have taken her secret to the grave, but I tell you honestly it's made spinach fans from spinach haters before. 

And you know what? Everything is going to be fine. These are all the trappings of Christmas. They are not the cause of it. That cause is something I ought to focus on more.

Besides, worst comes to worst, I can always just decorate the dogs and call it a night. Yes, I have done this thing, this is a thing I have done, and I will do this thing again.

You'd better watch out, puppies!

Cuts down on a lot of deliveries.

Things changed a lot on Christmas Eve after Santa came under the purview of OSHA.

 

Salute to the post office.

I'd just like to take a moment today to salute the United States Postal Service. 

You think I'm joking, but nay nay! 

We have two post offices pretty close to each other in neighboring villages. The large one, which has earned my ire in the past, is farther from me that the small one. Both are often understaffed. Part of this is institutional, in that the post office, in the manner of the great American car companies and mid-size to large American cities, spent the last seventy years turning into retirement and health benefit dispensaries that happen to have sidelines (delivering mail, making cars, leaning on shovels...). I must say thought that the people at my small post office work hard. 

I think they are more understaffed than usual due to labor shortages and the Chinese Death Virus that's still sweeping the world. (And yet, we are no better swept.)

So I had three boxes to put into the mailstrom (ha!) for delivery before Christmas, and with one thing or another that had little to do with me, I could not get to the post office until yesterday. There were two guys ahead of me and one clerk. 

The guy who was already at the counter was apparently mailing uranium to Iran, because the paperwork involved with his transaction was enormous and time-consuming. As I waited, the line behind me grew. The second mail clerk had to get the mail in from the outside box, which was jammed, and he was run run running like Rudolph. Honest, I think he was breaking a sweat. Not sure what happened when he went back inside, but I don't think he was on lunch break. 

I didn't mind waiting so much. My boxes were lightweight, and it gave me some time to reflect on this and that. The worst part was when the Christmas music playing went from the Eurythmics' "Winter Wonderland" to McCartney's (ARGH!) "Wonderful Christmastime." I'd rather listen to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" five times in a row so it gets jammed in my head like a sesame seed in a cavity than listen to "Wonderful Christmastime" once. We've put up with that song for forty years now; how much longer, O Lord?

At last I reached the counter, and José, the clerk, was as cordial as could be. He looked tired, but he didn't act that way. When I fumbled the "liquid, perishable, fragile, fabulous, or explosive" question and hit "Yes" on the keypad, he cheerfully started over. The shipping on the packages wasn't cheap--over $40 for the three--but they are all expected to make it to their destinations before Christmas, even the one going to California. 

So cheers to the post office for keeping their chin up and taking their Christmastime responsibilities seriously. At least José. If the packages fail to arrive as stated--and at this hour the tracking information still is not posted online--then cheers at least to José, who is getting things done.

People in song.

Below is a list of persons mentioned in 20 different well-known Christmas songs. Can you name what songs they're mentioned in without hittin' the search engine? Get your pencil and papers and let's get singing!

🎄🎅🤶⛄

1. Tiny Tots with Their Eyes All A-Glow
   
   
2. Parson Brown
   
   
3. Faithful Friends Who Are Dear to Us
   
   
4. Father [pacing the floor]
   
   
5. Your Favorite Girl
   
   
6. Miss Fanny Bright
   
   
7. The Traffic Cop
   
   
8. Kids Jingle-Belling
   
   
9. That Guy I've Been Chasing All Year
   
   
10. The Choir of Children
    
    
11. A Real Famous Cat All Dressed Up in Red
    
    
12. Sister Susie [or Thithter Thuthie]
    
    
13. Vixen and Blitzen [in that order]
    
    
14. Jack Frost Chillin'
    
    
15. Yellow and Red Ones
    
    
16. Little Nell
    
    
17. A Man Who Lives in Tennessee
    
    
18. Barney and Ben
    
    
19. Children Laughing, People Passing
    
    
20. The Mighty King

"Behold, Martians! The Answers!"

1. "The Christmas Song" (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow Will find it hard to sleep tonight)
   
   
2. "Winter Wonderland" (And pretend that he is Parson Brown)
   
   
3. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to us)
   
   
4. "Baby It's Cold Outside" (My father will be pacing the floor)
   
   
5. "A Marshmallow World" (Take a walk with your favorite girl)
   
   
6. "Jingle Bells" (And soon Miss Fanny Bright was seated by my side)
   
   
7. "Frosty the Snowman" (He led them down the streets of town, right to the traffic cop)
   
   
8. "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (With the kids jingle belling And everyone telling you Be of good cheer)
   
   
9. "Christmas Wrapping" (When what to my wondering eyes should appear In the line is that guy I've been chasing all year)
   
   
10. "Wonderful Christmastime" (The choir of children sing their song)
    
    
11. "Little Saint Nick" (And a real famous cat all dressed up in red And he spends the whole year workin' out on his sled)
    
    
12. "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" (Sister Susie sittin' on a thistle)
    
    
13. "Here Comes Santa Claus" (Vixen and Blitzen and all his reindeer pullin' on the reins)
    
    
14. "Christmas in Hollis" (Jack Frost chillin', the hawk is out, And that's what Christmas is all about)
     
15. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" (For yellow and red ones Let's stop all the fight)
    
    
16. "Up on the Rooftop" (First comes the stocking of little Nell)
    
    
17. "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" (I met a man who lives in Tennessee He was headin' for Pennsylvania, and some home made pumpkin pie)
    
    
18. "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots Is the wish of Barney and Ben)
    
    
19. "Silver Bells" (Children laughing, people passing Meeting smile after smile)
    
    
20. "Do You Hear What I Hear?" (said the shepherd boy to the mighty king)

Score 

1-5: You need to brush up on your Christmas, or your pop culture, or your supermarket music.

6-10: You may not celebrate Christmas, but it's rubbing off on you.

11-15: Not bad, not bad, but you're no holiday culture vulture.

16-19: Good score! You've been listening to the Walmart PA system.

20: Well done! You're the top of the Holiday Heap, baby!

A tight squeeze.

Seriously, how on earth are they going to buy anything here?

I showed my wife that picture and she said, "One bag of potato chip from BJ's and the car will tip over like Fred Flintstone's with the rack of ribs." 

Santa came early!

My new phone arrived to replace the one that baby dog Izzy broke. I'm considering it kind of a Christmas present that came early, since that helps me absolve myself from letting the little knucklehead get hold of my old phone. Yay! A present! I must have been a good boy this year!

But that was not the only present that arrived early! 

My wife didn't make any bones about it--she said, "You have to get this early so you can make your cookies." And that's today's task.

I usually don't use a mixer for baking, partly because I haven't had one in years. My mom gave us one when we got married, but it suffered a terrible, unfixable breakage that cannot be blamed on either me or the dogs or anyone else. I don't want to say who broke it, except it was my wife. So this is kind of a guilt present, I guess. 

I'm only doing two cookie recipes this year, so I don't exactly need an assembly-line production, but I do know that a mixer makes creaming butter and sugar a much easier task, so there's that. I look forward to putting this little Cuisinart beauty through its paces. 

I'll be making chocolate chip cookies and pfeffeneuse. Chocolate chip cookies may not seem very Christmassy, but they're my wife's favorite, so it's the least I can do. As for the pfeffeneuse, it's an old family recipe. Well, maybe it's someone's old family recipe. I got it out of a long-out-of-print book in the library of a publisher I worked for many moons ago. It's the only pfeffeneuse I ever tasted that could stand up to those of the great Bay Ridge Scandihoovian bakers--soft, spicy, iced, perfect. If anyone's interested, I'll post the recipe on this site.

One last note on the topic: As you enter the kitchen, tying on the ol' apron, remember the words of advice from that great lawman, Sheriff Mark Kaminski, as seen in the seminal film Raw Deal:  

Put a nickel in the drum, shame another racist bum.

You may have heard the news that the Salvation Army, heretofore a rock-ribbed Better Business Bureau Accredited Christian-based unit determined to save the bodies and souls of as many people as it could, had fallen prey to regrettable political correctness in its training. Specifically, according to Breitbart:

The Salvation Army has followed the lead of other woke organizations in entering the establishment media-manufactured race war and is asking donors to offer a “sincere apology” for White supremacy and White-dominated culture, as detailed in a resource guide “developed to guide The Salvation Army family in gracious discussions about overcoming the damage racism has inflicted upon our world.”...

The resource guide itself contains “five sessions” to “help delve into the topic of racism and the Church.” Those include entire sections titled “Self-Care for People of Color,” “What is Whiteness?,” “Lamenting and Repenting — a Conversation Guide,” among others. 

Well, how about that. O'Sullivan's First Law says that any organization or enterprise that is not expressly right wing will become left wing over time, and it certainly looks like the Army was falling into that trap, going from an ecumenical arm of good works to naming and shaming white people for all the racism in the world.

Okay.

I have donated to the Army many times, through the kettles, but also through mail donations, and I've known at least one guy who was saved from dying on the street as a bum by the organization. So this seemed bothersome. I sent them a note to say how disappointed I was that they had caved to critical race theory, essentially a firehose of misinformation designed to encourage us not to love but to hate one another. I explained that I would be taking my charitable donations elsewhere. They did reply as such:

Some individuals and groups have recently attempted to mislabel our organization to serve their own agenda(s). They have made claims that we believe our donors should apologize for their skin color, that The Salvation Army believes America is an inherently racist society, and that our organization has abandoned its beliefs for one ideology or another. These are absolutely untrue and they distort the very goal of our work. We encourage you to learn more about our beliefs, and to read our full response to these claims.

But I had read that reply already, and as I responded, it's not a discussion about race when one people are singled out as racist as a postulate, with no recourse but "lamenting and repenting." I told them they had lost their way. I will take my racist money elsewhere. 

Place Honky Money Here

Well, I can't say I get results, but two things happened after that: the Salvation Army withdrew the "Let's Talk About Racism" guide, a.k.a. "Let's Make Toxic Allegations Against White People," and it was later reported that volunteers and contributions have fallen through the floor. Good. If it doesn't hurt, they won't learn. 

CRT and similar programs have no intention of helping us love one another; they are intended to ruin and tribalize our nation. The Army had better get away from its blinkered ideas about "social justice" (the most backward term in the world, as it is neither social nor just) and get its focus back on its mission. They may not recover from this, at least not for a long time, and it would be a true pity if it fell apart this way.

My main concern is that no matter how much the organization suffers for this, it will never learn. It will call the racist training program a tempest in a red kettle, and point to the real reason for the lack of donations and volunteers--the Omicron Variant, the economy, the lack of people Christmas shopping in person, whatever. Or they'll just shrug and say Welp, it's because they're all racist, and we were right, and go down with the ship. C'est la guerre, eh, Army? 

Newstalgia.

The 1954 film White Christmas isn't going to be running on a full-day marathon this year on AMC, but it's definitely on the schedule. I've wondered how this VistaVision classic had become so popular with viewers nowadays, when it had barely been seen on TV for decades. It's not a bad movie and it has some great songs, but why now?

The more I think of it, the less I think it has to do with the film's virtues, and more to do with the reasons for the current adulation of PBS painter Bob Ross (died 26 years ago) and PBS child friend Mr. Rogers (died 18 years ago). And that is: Because our culture today sucks eggs. 

It's no surprise that people my age and older find that the culture sucks. Ever since all the arts got targeted at people under thirty, everyone over thirty is obliged to find that these kids today blah blah blah. But I think that the kids themselves feel that they have terrible culture, and prefer to seek out things from a better one. Things like kindness without irony. Romance without the expectation of instant gratification--or the beartrap of sexist accusation. Calm without a horrific storm. Entertainment, in other words, without a sucker punch.

I've heard people my age say the reason kids are so unhappy is because their music sucks. Well, a lot of the music from my generation sucked too, but most of the singers weren't swearing like Bowery bums or threatening everybody or, worst of all, using AutoTune.

Why do we have such a horrible culture? A few reasons. One is the long-held belief dating at least to Freud that the more awful something is, the more true it must be, since everything we do is meant to conceal the awful truth. Or something like that. Also, there are rewards for shocking the jaded, but that ratchet effect has been going on for a long time. There's not much room left on the jack. And finally, we live with a culture that has the idea that everything--that's the total in totalitarianism--has to support THE MISSION. So every book, movie, TV show, etc. has to have some propaganda in it. At the very least, even for people who are 100% behind THE MISSION, that means all entertainment is injected with a dose of homework. Who wants that after an exhausting day? 

My feeling is that this stuff is going to continue until some bright publisher or producer realizes that there's a strong market for new stuff that satisfies the way these cultural items of the past do. I think the infamous Hallmark movies are doing that now, which is why the fans of those aren't all the people that the intelligentsia expect--trailer-park yahooettes. It's much more widespread than that. 

We need some kind of culture that is fit for common consumption, that is not soaked in propaganda. The products of our current culture are in effect designed to put decent people at one another's throats all the time. How long are we going to support garbage like that?

Shocking.

 

Rejection.

Dear Author:

Thank you for writing about your project. Here at Schnorbis Lit, we love to see exciting new works from exciting new authors. 

Unfortunately we are unable to entertain your request for representation. This is likely because your novel failed to meet one of the crucial criteria for new fiction as noted below.

✔ All books must feature a main badass female character whom all the good people like and who is never wrong. 

✔ All characters must fall within the range of 50-100 percent POC.

✔ At least 25 percent of characters must be LGBTQIA2s+.

✔ Any mention of a writer of English of the past should mention that the person was either A) a dead straight white male or B) a badass (everyone else).

✔ Any mention of the United States must include descriptors such as "racist" and "genocidal."

✔ Romantic elements in a plot are understandable within reason but should not compromise the badassery of any female or POC characters.

✔ All characters must declare their pronouns.

✔ Protagonists in fantasy, historical, or science fiction books must maintain the proper attitudes and beliefs of correct persons c. 2021. These may be changed up to and including galley stage if such attitudes and beliefs require adjusting.

✔ If a book with a mystery element features any straight white male or males, that person(s) is/are automatically guilty. 

✔ Trigger warnings must be included for violence, unwanted sexual behavior, attitudes of racism, sexism, mansplaining, evangelism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, paganophobia, ailurophobia, and carnivorous behavior.  

Please do not be discouraged, but also do not bother writing to any other agencies, You will find that these rules apply to all agents and publishing houses nowadays, except for a few knuckle-draggers who publish books with men toting big phallic guns on the covers. 

Good luck (and you will need it),

Adeline Schnorbis (they/them)

The dog ate my phone.

Okay, not really, but really enough. 

I could actually blame it on the wind as much as the puppy, or on my bad back, or on my annoying friend whom I'll call Roger. But the worst thing is, it's probably my fault more than anyone or anything else's. 

Let's take it from the top. 

📱🐕

You may have thought I was kidding yesterday about baby dog Izzy eating ornaments, but I'm totally serious. There isn't much around here that he has not at least tried to bite. If you drop anything around this guy--food, tools, tissues, bottles, papers, gold Krugerrands, radioactive ingots--anything at all he will be on it before you can bend over to pick it up. He's discovering the world by biting it, one thing at a time, and he drives me batty. So no, I don't think he'd try to bite a glass ornament, but I'm not ruling it out, either. 

I mentioned last year that since my brief but wildly expensive hospitalization for crushing back pain I have been prescribed the antidepressant duloxetine, which hasn't helped my mood at all but has done wonders for the musculoskeletal pain. I've wanted to get off the drug, though, because it often leaves me very sleepy. Since I work at home I can take a nap if I absolutely must. And when the dogs are a whimpering mess or fear because of a windstorm outside all night long, you can bet there will be a nappin' come the dawn.

That's what happened on Saturday night. The boys took turns being fearful or just wakeful, and I thus had to take them out, soothe them back to sleep. So Sunday morning came, the wind eased up, and I was dying for a nap. So were the dogs. So I crashed on the sofa, as I often do.

Somewhere in there Roger called. Roger usually has little to say but chooses the most inopportune times to say it. Am I asleep? Check. On the highway? Check. On the can? Checkeroo. In the shower? Check and recheck. He's not a bad guy at all, but his timing is just terrible. So he woke me from my nap, we spoke briefly, and I went back to sleep, tucking my phone in the pocket of my sweatpants. 

OR DID I?

Because sometime later I awoke to my wife shouting and Izzy chomping away merrily on my iPhone right on the floor in front of me.

The good news is, he didn't completely break it, and he didn't get hurt. This is because I have broken a phone in the past by dropping it on the floor (yeah, real galaxy brain here) so I have an Otter Box to protect this one. The bad news is, he broke the Home button anyway. You can see the chomp marks around the button on the Otter Box. 

Those clever chaps at Apple have a workaround, though, and once I'd cleaned the slobber off the phone I discovered that my iPhone had self-diagnosed the breakage and put an on-screen Home button where I could use it. There is, however, no way to fix the actual Home button.

So, at my wife's urging, I did not punt Izzy like I was at my own five-yard line, but rather got on my laptop and ordered a new phone. I can use all the features on the old phone in the meanwhile, so Roger can rest assured that it will be taking his call next time I'm in the shower.  

Was it Izzy's fault? No, he's just a kid. Was it my fault for leaving the phone out? I think it may have fallen out of my pocket while I was sleeping, but if that was caused by the fatigue I was suffering, can I blame the windy weather? Or the makers of duloxetine? Or can I blame Rog, without whose call I would have left the phone safely where it was? 

It simply seems that these kinds of dumb expenses come right at the most expensive time of year. The credit card was already steaming, and now it's got to carry the freight for a new phone, thanks to my goat-like puppy. This is the kind of thing that makes people turn off the Grinch cartoon right as he's about to dump all the Who gifts off of Mount Crumpit and yell "That's a happy ending!"

Anyway, I'm blaming Rog. He can take it.

Bingle balls and whofoo fluff.

Trim up the tree with christmas stuff

Like bingle balls and whofoo fluff

Trim up the tree with googoo gums and bizzle-binks and wumms...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the Whos down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot. Why? Because they could just throw crap on a tree and it would stick. 

Who's Who among Whos of Whoville

Don't get me wrong; I love to decorate for Christmas. It's fun, satisfying, and gets great acclaim and gratitude. But what it doesn't get is help. For a variety of reasons, none emanating from me, I decorate alone these days. And it's very time-consuming. Everybody wants to see it; nobody wants to help. Unfortunately time is in short supply, especially as I am having to YES every job that comes my way to keep the wolf from the door. (I told the wolf I now live at Nancy Pelosi's place, but he doesn't believe me.)

One thing that's changed the dynamic is new puppy, Izzy. Izzmeister deals poorly with separation anxiety and makes high-pitched whines when left alone, which drives my work-from-home wife nuts. And I can't have him with me while I decorate, or he'd eat ornaments. Best-case scenario there, he poops tinsel but is otherwise unharmed. I've cut back on the overall decorating plan, since he can't be trusted near decorations. But I've also had to cut back on the opportunities to get the bizzle-binks and wumms up because he needs babysitting. So, the time is still crunched. 

I wish I could just 

Trim up the tree with fuzzel fuzz

And whiffer bloofs, and wuzzel wuzz

Trim up your uncle and your aunt

With yards of whofut flant

Which, in the Chuck Jones Grinch cartoon, is just hurled at trees and walls and ceilings and sticks beautifully. Not the case here.

🎄🎄🎄

Tangent: Is the Grinch microscopic?

Think about it. In Horton Hears a Who!, the presumably normal-size Horton the Elephant discovers that there is an entire civilization of Whos living in a dandelion or something. (I hated that story. Terrifying.) That civilization contains a town called Whoville. Does that mean that Mount Crumpit is also in the speck? Is the Grinch himself is so tiny as to be invisible to the naked eye? Perhaps microscopic to the level of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's TEAM 0.5 electron microscope? Makes you think, doesn't it?

I don't know about what, but doesn't it?

In the meadow we can build...

 

Elves I have known.

Anyone can claim to know Santa Claus. "Sure, me 'n the big Ho Ho Homeister go back to when I was a little tot," one might say. And why not? Santa goes to every house that celebrates Christmas and dumps some gifts, he's available for visits in public shopping centers everywhere, and he even makes appearances at parties. He may be stealthy, but he's not exactly shy. 

I, however, can claim to have known a number of the North Pole elves, due partly to my work with the Elves Tool and Dye Union Local 34. They liked to have their meetings off premises where the bosses wouldn't be able to butt in, so they would go to one of the watering holes frequented by the Teamsters and other mobsters in the city. I met a few of them there. Most of them were lightweights, drinking wine spritzers and frozen daiquiris, but a few of them could hold their weight. 

Pretty typical scene at the end of the night.

Here are a couple dozen of the gang that I got to know over the years. Most of them were all right, but some, sheesh, you shouldn't meet in a dark alley. At least not if you're under two feet tall. 

Alex Zingy

Fat Joe (shop steward)

Splink

Frenzy McGee

Little Pierre

Stiiv McQuiin

Fat Joe Jr. 

Godzilla

Zesty McGee (a real knockout)

Pow-Pow

The Yuling Idiot (not sure what his real name was)

Hasty Puddin'

Elrond

Cornhole

The Situation

Meriwinkle (kind of quiet, drank sherry)

Texas Prairie Chicken

Flangepart

Pesky McGee

Fat Joe III

Rondo Hatton 

Peewee 

Little Peewee

Ying Tong Iddle I Po

Duck Bharma

Like I say, nice guys for the most part. However, Pow-Pow and Godzilla still owe me bail money. If you see them at the mall with Santa, let them know I haven't forgotten. 

Dog vs. CAT.

As you may recall, our beloved effervescent knucklehead Nipper was lost to us at the age of four last February, concluding the trifecta of February crap that has plagued us for the last three years ('19, concussion; '20; hospitalization for back injury; '21, sweet dog gone from lymphoma too soon). When we heard of another puppy available this past summer, we decided we had to get him, lest we lose our momentum and just get old with ol' Tralfaz (he's a story for another time). 

So we have Izzy, the baby who just turned seven months old, fresh as a yellow dandelion and bouncy as a crate of Tiggers, and guess what? I have to take him for a CAT scan on Monday. 

No, not that type.

Looks like hip and elbow dysplasia. This was all very surprising. We got him from a responsible person who checks back four generations for these kinds of conditions, since developing them at a young age usually means inheritance, and there was no sign of this. His eight littermates are perfectly normal. And we can't help but think his continued bad puppy behavior (biting, mostly) may be linked to the possibility that he's just in pain, even though he's now on the (non-cheap) painkiller/anti-inflammatory Galliprant. 

It all started when we noticed him limping in October, and now Monday morning I have to drive the poor dude to an animal hospital in Jersey to be sedated and have his elbows scanned. This following the $1,400 worth of X-rays he already got from our local vet. I will say, though, his upcoming CAT scan is about 10 percent of the cost of the ones I got when I was laid up in '20.

The lady we got him from is willing to take him back, full refund, but it's too late now. We love him, and his behavior is not a danger to himself or others, so we have to see this through. Wish us luck--when he is good he is very very good, and that's the boy we want to nurture and free from pain.

Where my head is. At.

Actually, this is pretty much the way I am all the time. Is it business? Busyness? Bidenness? Am I just so full of trivia that I can't make room for new data? I'm voting for the last option, as you can see.  

Christmastime is here!

 I'm back! And slightly lamer than ever!

ho ho ho

What a year this has been. So full of... Crap, mostly. But worry not! Your old friend Fred is here to try to pick up the thread on Your Daily Dose of Vitamin Fred. Why? Because you're showing signs of grippe, my friends, as well as catarrh and pox and housemaid's knee. All these are well known to be caused by a deficiency of vitamin F.

But mainly, because I missed you! 

In a nutshell, for those who have not followed the whine trail through the comments on the site of the Great Lileks, or just been personally close enough to hear me, we got a new puppy named Izzy in the summer and he is part cupid and part angel of doom. Mostly all dog, but there are issues beyond mere dogginess. Elder dog Tralfaz has not been well, but that's another story. There was a financial crisis, and much gnashing of teeth (gnash gnash). Which reminds me--I haven't been to the dentist in ages. So it's been a tough year. I'm sure I'll be addressing a lot of this stuff in bite-size pieces going forward.

I'm still crushed for time, as in under the famous Letterman 80-ton hydraulic press, so I don't think I'll be able to revive the Wednesday book feature anytime soon. If I do, I'll finally stop calling it the Humpback Writers. 'Twas a silly name.  

Anyway, that's all for today, and thanks for visiting. Going forward we can expect to see the usual snide remarks, dopey anecdotes, goofy commentary, and poorly rendered cartoons. Hope to see you around!

A pause.

I'm afraid circumstances are requiring me to announce a hiatus in this blog.

No, not that kind!

Sadly, it's not a vacation, nor a big book tour (ha!). I just have a lot that must get done this next week and no time in which to do it. I hope to be back next Saturday, but plan to post again if the situation worsens. 

Please enjoy the rest of your April!

George & Dragon.

Today is the feast day of St. George. You know -- dragon killing dude. That's pretty much the only thing anyone (including me) thinks of. And yet he's the patron saint of England, Catalonia, and Moscow; there are 26 towns named for St. George, including the seat of Richmond County in New York; and the cross of St. George -- red cross on white banner -- can be found all around England. The Coptic Church calls him the Prince of Martyrs, and he is even revered by Muslims. There is a statue of him on the grounds of the United Nations building in Manhattan, slaying a "dragon" made of actual pieces of US and Soviet missiles, a Russian gift in 1990. But who was he? 

Like several early saints in the church, such as Christopher, his legend had a tendency to crowd out the facts. He was the real deal, whom Pope Gelasius I canonized in 494. Here's what the Saints & Angels page says:

George was born to a Gerontios and Polychronia, a Roman officer and a Greek native of Lydda. Both were Christians from noble families of the Anici and George, Georgios in the original Greek, was raised to follow their faith.

When George was old enough, he was welcomed into Diocletian's army. by his late 20's, George became a Tribunus and served as an imperial guard for the Emperor at Nicomedia.

On February 24, 303 A.D., Diocletian, who hated Christians, announced that every Christian the army passed would be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods.

George refused to abide by the order and told Diocletian, who was angry but greatly valued his friendship with George's father.

When George announced his beliefs before his peers, Diocletian was unable to keep the news to himself. In an effort to save George, Diocletian attempted to convert him to believe in the Roman gods, offered him land, money and slaves in exchange for offering a sacrifice to the Roman gods, and made several other offers that George refused.

Finally, after exhausting all other options, Diocletian ordered George's execution. In preparation for his death, George gave his money to the poor and was sent for several torture sessions. He was lacerated on a wheel of swords and required resuscitation three times, but still George did not turn from God.

On April 23, 303 A.D., George was decapitated before Nicomedia's outer wall. His body was sent to Lydda for burial, and other Christians went to honor George as a martyr.

That sounds like a brave but very typical saint of the early church, willing to go to a horrible death rather than renounce Jesus Christ. 

So... what about the dragon? 

Here's the story:

There are several stories about George fighting dragons, but in the Western version, a dragon or crocodile made its nest at a spring that provided water to Silene, believed to be modern-day Lcyrene in Libya.

The people were unable to collect water and so attempted to remove the dragon from its nest on several occasions. It would temporarily leave its nest when they offered it a sheep each day, until the sheep disappeared and the people were distraught.

This was when they decided that a maiden would be just as effective as sending a sheep. The townspeople chose the victim by drawing straws. This continued until one day the princess' straw was drawn.

The monarch begged for her to be spared but the people would not have it. She was offered to the dragon, but before she could be devoured, George appeared. He faced the dragon, protected himself with the sign of the Cross, and slayed the dragon.

After saving the town, the citizens abandoned their paganism and were all converted to Christianity.

Obviously there is at least one thing in the story that's deeply weird -- the idea that the men of Silene said to themselves, "We're clean outta sheep; what do we do? Go fight the dragon? Nah, that's crazy talk. Let's just feed him the girls." Although to be fair, that was probably one hell of a dragon (or crocodile).

No disrespect meant to St. George or the other martyrs of the church, but I kind of think that without the tale of bold St. George killing the dragon he would not have nearly the same popularity. Sober men of the church revere the saints who gave their lives for Christ, but all guys like the story of a dude willing to kill a dragon and save the princess.

Laff away your gut!

When my doctor says, "You ought to lose weight" I say "Har har HARDY har har!"

Why do I say that? It's obvious that with my back and my general shape I am not going to go to the gym to flail around on the weight machines willy-nilly. If someone were to ask me, "How do you perform a standing dumbbell cobra with alternate arms?" my answer would be to hire a guy.

But you see, my plan is to laugh my way into good shape! 

You may laugh at that. Good! It's good exercise. Hey, I've got science on my side here.

While doing some research for work I came across a 2006 study from the London International Journal of Obesity. It's called "Energy Expenditure of Genuine Laughter." According to these chucklesome boffins, "Genuine voiced laughter causes a 10–20% increase in EE [energy expenditure] and HR [heart rate] above resting values, which means that 10–15 min of laughter per day could increase total EE by 40–170 kJ (10–40 kcal)."

That's great! I can just laugh my way to health. I love to laugh; I love to read and watch funny stuff. And I'm not talking about the sarcastic ha-ha I do when I look at "news"papers or the clapter that follows feeding the crowd some bit of political stuff they like. I'm talking gut-busting laughs that make me crawl to get tissues as I try not to knock over any beverages. Damn straight that burns calories!  

Now, you're probably wondering how long it will take for me to hyuk hyuk all my lard off. Let me do some math here.... If we take the old formula that states 3,500 cal (or kcal) = 1 pound, and 15 minutes of laughter burns 40 calories... 87.5... per hour, 21.875... round up to 22 (close enough).... 

Looks like if I laugh around the clock for 46 days straight I'll be in excellent shape.

Um.

Hm.

Ah.

I wonder how many calories you burn by crying?

Fred's Book Club: Such Tripe!

It is Wednesday, which is Hump Day, and that means it's time for the Humpback Writers, our serious book feature with the silly name. To date no actual humps on the writers have been detected, despite our best efforts. In fact, today's author/artist, while being a bit advanced in years, still has no sign of back problems, as one can see on his Web page. 

Yes, today we're profiling British cartoonist Bill Tidy, and specifically one book-length installment of his long-running cartoon saga, The Fosdyke Saga (a takeoff on the novel and TV series The Forsyte Saga). And if you stay to the end of today's post, you'll see an interesting connection between this comic strip and a notorious case currently in the papers.

When I was a kid, I loved comic strips, especially the funny ones. What would prove to be my favorite form was not the straight gag or the adventure stories, but the rarest and most difficult -- the continuing story that still had a daily punchline. Strips like Thimble Theatre and Little Nemo were known for it, but they were long gone. It was a vanished breed in my youth, at least in America, but across the pond Bill Tidy had been writing and drawing one since 1971 for the Daily Mirror. The Fosdyke Saga featured the various adventures of the Fosdyke clan, Britain's greatest tripe-selling family, and their ongoing struggles in the Edwardian era and beyond, especially against the nefarious rival Roger Ditchley. The adventures centered around selling tripe, promoting the public's awareness of tripe, inventing new uses for tripe (tripe parachute!), fending off various wicked persons, and acquiring rare tripe-related objects for their tripe museum (on the book cover above you can see the South American tripe pyramid, composed completely of dried tripe). 

From the front matter

I bought the above book (the last in the series) at the Forbidden Planet store in the Village. While a lot of the humor (or humour) was lost on this young American at the time, I still thought it was brilliant, funny, endlessly inventive, and a veritable a circus of great characters.

Tidy maintained interest with cliffhangers and rotating storylines. In one adventure in the book above, adventurous son Tom Fosdyke has been dispatched to the Arctic Circle to seek the Arctic Tripe Snake!

Meanwhile, in Manchester, youngest and strongest son Tim has had a breakdown following a plot of Ditchley's to convince the Fosdykes they are haunted! Unfortunately the doctor leaves much to be desired....

Meanwhile Jos, head of the family, is stuck in a pub, where he is spying on a devious plan to rob a bank and pin the blame on his own horse, the mighty and faithful Tripeworks!!!! (!!!)

I loved the format and desperately wanted to create a comic strip like that for the American market. Unfortunately by the time I was coming of age, newspapers were starting to die and the comics pages were shrinking, a shadow of what they once were -- and that was before the Internet just about delivered the coup de grace. 

But that came much earlier for Tidy at the Mirror. In 1984 the Mirror was acquired by Robert Maxwell, MP, who didn't think Bill Tidy was funny, and cast him out. Tidy had been at the paper since the fifties, so this was a pretty big blow. The thing that saddened Bill most was that he'd planned to extend the Fosdyke adventures much longer:

“It was a very sad day when, with forty years of the Fosdyke story told, the Mirror’s new management decided to axe the strip [in 1985]. Fosdykes at Dunkirk, The Salford Blitz, the place of tripe production in the Marshall Plan, the possibility of free school tripe under the terms of the 1944 Education Act. All these stirring events are ready chronicled and simply need the light of day — a nation waits.”

But alas, that was the end. The Fosdyke saga, which had been adapted into radio plays, a TV show, and a stage play, came to a close. And people wonder why hardly anyone eats tripe anymore.

Here's the kicker I mentioned at the top: Robert Maxwell, who later annoyed New Yorkers by buying the Daily News, perished in 1991 in a bizarre incident where he apparently fell off his yacht naked while peeing in the ocean (as one does). Murder and suicide were ruled out (hmm); death by heart attack that caused drowning was the coroner's deduction. Maxwell had defaulted on a fifty million pound loan, which set off a feeding frenzy among his creditors, and his publishing empire came to the same fate as did he, minus the peeing.

More recently, Maxwell's daughter Ghislaine has been much in the news. As I write, she still faces serious charges for her dealings with the late Jeffrey Epstein, who probably did not kill himself. That story is, shall we say, tripe. The question is whether she can bargain her silence for freedom, based on the high rollers that went to Pedo Island under her watch. 

But on goes Bill Tidy, drawing and doing many other things, and God bless him. His is the kind of saga one should emulate, not that of the strange and awful Maxwells. 

Silly-con valley.

 

The BodiSocc, a one-piece garment, is becoming popular among Silicon Valley types
who hate dealing with laundry.

You know they'd go for it because it:

• features technologically advanced fabric
• is anti-cultural
• is good for the lazy
• has a stupid name
• is childish