The sweetstakes.

Mom brought home a carton of Neapolitan ice cream! Gentlemen: Start your scoops! Which flavor will you try to grab before your beloved friends and family can get any?

First, the backgrounder. It's not Neopolitan, which would mean it's from some new city that didn't exist before; it's Neapolitan, as from Naples, Italy. And what's a southern Italian city got to do with an ice-cold confection? Nuthin'. Well, Wikipedia says that the dessert originated in Prussia, but got associated in American with Neapolitan immigrants who were experts in frozen desserts like spumoni. When I was a kid I thought it was supposed to mimic the Italian tricolor flag, but if that were the case the flavors would be pistachio, vanilla, and strawberry in that order. 

So which flavor would be taken first? I had heard that as recently as the early 80's, America still loved vanilla more than any other ice cream flavor, chocolate and strawberry running second and third. However, Parade magazine and Newsweek both report that chocolate is now the top flavor, vanilla second. Strawberry still makes the podium with the bronze. However, I object to both polls, and not just because I am a vanilla fan. Both polls include Neapolitan as a flavor, and it is not a flavor; it is not even a combination of flavors, like Cookies & Cream or Rocky Road. It is a sandwich of distinct flavors, and ought to not have been an option.

Whichever you choose, you'll have to go on without me. I'm proud to say that since January 1, I have completely taken sugar out of my diet. Exceptions include one birthday I was obliged to celebrate, naturally occurring sugars in fruits, minuscule amounts in some breakfast cereals, one Friday dinner of pancakes in Lent, and whatever was still in the house on January 1, which was not much. No Easter candy, no Valentine's chocolate, no cookies when people bring them to meetings, no desserts, only sugar-free preserves (which are weird) and sugar-free yogurt and sugar-free peanut butter and sugar-free everything else. All those doughnut reviews and cookies samplings I've done on this site before? A thing of the past. (I will note that the few bits of sugar I had did not send me into sugar-craving frenzies; I think the whole sugar addiction idea is overblown.)

The doctor didn't make me do it. I wanted to lose weight before my back went out again; it seemed like a good idea for my achin' back to take off some poundage. And I got tired of fighting my clothes. If you've been a friend to this blog (God bless your soul!), you know I have a sweet tooth, so I figured that the pounds would melt away. And guess what? Going by the way my clothes fit, I might as well have kept eating the doughnuts and the cookies and ice cream and maybe taking maple syrup shots in my coffee, too. 

I guess I have to up my game somehow. I'd have thought that after almost six months there'd be some progress, but no. It's discouraging, and I've never been good at finding ways to get recouraged after being discouraged. 

*sigh* 

Pass the scoop. 

Either that, or join the clowns.

"I'm not kidding, Neil! Either lose some weight or we have to up the black powder!"

 

New Year's devolutions.

I was inspired yesterday by this meme on the Great Lileks's comments, posted by our friend Mongo:

I find this is pretty true for me as well. In that spirit, I've decided that my best course of action is to resolve to do exactly the opposite of what I ought to do this year, in the hope that it will result in me doing what I ought to do as I break the resolutions as normal.

In that spirit, I hereby resolve:

📅To gain at least thirty pounds, if not more, by letting my diet go to hell and exercising as little as humanly possible. 

🙌To do as little work as I can while seeking lower pay all the time. 

🥳To stay away from church and avoid all forms of spiritual growth, stuffing myself instead with pop culture and stupid timewasters. 

🔔To allow my dogs to run wild and undisciplined, and do whatever they please with no training from me. 

📅To neglect family, friends, and all other personal relationships to the point where they wonder if I died.

🙌To let my finances fall into complete disarray and spend, spend, spend. 

🥳To let the house go to hell and stuff every room with garbage like I'm auditioning for a hard case episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive.

🔔To be as rude to my fellow man as I can without getting beaten up or killed.

📅To achieve nothing more intellectually challenging than sitting through an episode of a Real Housewives show. 

That should do it. Check in next December to see how it's going, if I live that long. 

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?

The ranch menace.

Why are Americans so fat? 

Well, there are many reasons given for this problem. One is that our food is so plentiful nnd cheap and just tastes so darn good. Another is that healthy foods like kale and okra taste so darn bad. But that's not enough for our lard-studying boffins, who have done deeper dives to determine things like:

1) The 1990s Food Pyramid was a disaster, encouraging the preference of useless sugar over appetite-satiating fat;

2) Technology had led us steadily to a more sedentary lifestyle, removing physical effort from work, going to work, doing household work, traveling anywhere, socializing, and even making food;

3) Fat parents have fatter children, as the former are unable to instill discipline in the latter;

4) Our splintered communities and loss of faith in institutions have led to less self-discipline and more depression, leading to unhealthy habits including poor diet choices.

And so on and so forth. I don't argue with any of it. But they do tend to overlook... THE RANCH MENACE. 

Why is this valley hidden, anyway?
What's it hiding?

I don't think it's any coincidence that our problems with obesity began when ranch dressing moved from a largely unknown condiment to an omnipotent treat. Wikipedia tells us it originated in the 1950s on an actual dude ranch, but didn't reach the wider world until the 1970s, when Clorox bought the brand and started pushing it nationally. 

By the 1980s, "ranch" started to appear as a flavor built into chips. In 1992, ranch topped Italian as Americans' favorite salad dressing. And this is where the problem comes in -- ranch is more fattening than Italian. Original Hidden Valley ranch dressing has 14g of fat, 2g saturated fat, and 130 calories in just two lousy tablespoons. The same amount of Wishbone Italian would yield half the fat, half the saturated fat, and 80 calories. 

And it's not just the numbers. Something about ranch dressing inspires crazed addiction in some people. You never saw Italian Herb Doritos, but Cool Ranch Doritos have been a moneymaker for more than thirty years. People buy ranch dressing by gallon. You want a recipe for ranch dressing ice cream? Kraft has one for you. I've never seen Catalina French ice cream. Ranch fans are a little crazy.

I'm not saying that among the junkies filling the parks and lining the streets of California are helpless ranch addicts, shivering in the morning dew, in need of a creamy fix. But I'm not NOT saying that, either. 

I see that celeb food guy Alton Brown has teamed up with Conagra's Healthy Choice brand to push a line of so-called "Power Dressings," including Creamy Ranch. A glance at the numbers make it look much healthier indeed -- 1.5g fat per 2 tablespoons, 45 calories, no saturated fat -- but will this sate the cravings of the ranch addict? We all know fat tastes good, because it conveys flavor like nothing else. Can it do the job?

I say nay. I think it's a methadone program for ranch addicts, but not as effective, and I believe ranchiacs (as they are sometimes called) will reject it. 

I simply don't think we can make America slim again until we abolish the ranch menace entirely. My slogan for the mission is "If fat we much stanch, abolish the ranch." (All right, I know that requires pronouncing ranch as rahnch, but work with me here.)

Try not to take everything personally.

While going about my business, working on a roundup of information about the Chinese Death Virus, the Communist Chinese party's little gift to the world, I was referred by a colleague to a pre-publication report on obesity and COVID-19 death rates. It's been known for some time that the obese have higher rates of death from infection with the stupid virus; during New York City's siege it was found in a different study that obesity was the main underlying condition (not counting age) that complicated treatment. No surprise there. 

The surprise came from the comments section. This being a pre-pub study, the comments were not reserved to serious medical personnel. But there was this, which was retweeted five times:

Our commenter here is a "suicidologist" who seems to have the intention of helping people, especially those who have suffered from the suicide of a loved one. I don't think that's an official title, as her main avocation seems to be art, photography, and other nonmedical areas of study. But I'm not sure I understand why she seems so upset. Is she mad at the scientists for even studying this because it is fat-shaming? That's my best guess, because it seems from her Web site that she, like your humble author, may have excess adipose tissue. But if that's the case, I have to say: Relax. Don't take everything so personally. 

I feel hectored as well by the medical world, which seems like it won't be happy until we're surviving on kale and lemon water and bicycling everywhere, even in the snow. There's a lot of humblenag going on. At the same time, I know I would feel and likely be healthier if I were to drop some weight. I believe them when they say obesity is a major contributor to illness, and I don't think the scientists attached to the study under discussion are doing anything but passing on observed data. It may make me feel sad for myself and others who struggle to lose weight, and those whose lives were lost in the battle against the Jinping Pneumonia, but just because it makes me feel bad doesn't mean it isn't accurate. The truth is the truth no matter how I feel about it.

And this is where we are now. It seems that many of the same people who claimed to be all about the science want to cancel science when they don't like where it leads (science being a method, not a creed). There's a lot of things we might find useful to know that we likely never will, because to even ask the questions brings down the fury of the mob. 

It's up to me how I decide to act on the information presented. It is often questionable, the field of science being as subject to corruption as any other human endeavor. But I will tell you this: If a study comes out that promises I will live to 102 if I adopt the kale and lemon water diet, I'll say that's all right, I'll be happy to make it to 95.

Diet TV.

Is the diet plan already failing in the new year? Is the cold weather triggering the nesting/eating instinct? Are you snowed in and unable to resist the siren call of the refrigerator?

Well, worry not! Basic cable is coming to the rescue!

How can this be? With shows like Food Network and the Cooking Channel, not to mention great food shows on PBS and the Travel Channel, surely cable TV is worse than useless at encouraging healthy eating!

That's true as far as it goes. For example, there is a word for shows about healthy eating on the Food Network, and that word is: Canceled. No one wants to pay for homework. So all their shows make food that looks delicious, no matter the calories and cholesterol, and devil take the hindmost.

But there are plenty of other shows out there that will kill your appetite dead.

I'm not talking about things like American Gothic or The Walking Dead, that might be supposed to work by showing gross icky monsters. We know that doesn't do the job. If horror movies kept people from eating, the theaters would never show them. They live by the concession stand.

But it's a different kettle of pus when you're talking about reality shows, programs that show real-life disgusting stuff. And that's where we come in. Have a look at these next time the hankerin' starts up:

The Incredible Dr. Pol: NatGeo's show about Michigan veterinarian Jan Pol is fascinating -- Dutch-American Pol is not a young man but he fearlessly treats any kind of animal, from a hamster to a bull that could kick you to pieces. Every episode seems to feature him having to drag a live young out of some huge mammal, sticking his arm completely inside the organs of something or other, and parts of Michigan that are under a permanent layer of manure. Also, he and his staff spend a lot of time shoving uteruses back into cows. You could almost make a drinking game out of it. Fascinating stuff, especially for us city boys.

Dr. Pimple Popper: Dermatologist Sandra Lee pulls unbelievable things out of human beings -- gigantic fat deposits, multicolored goo, miscellaneous blobs. They're all incredibly gross. The number of things that can grow in human skin is mind-boggling. She puts her patients at ease during procedures with running commentary on what she is squeezing/pulling/suctioning out -- this looks like mozzarella, that looks like gray toothpaste, ooh that's like a chicken breast, and so on. This TLC show is the biggest appetite suppressant on TV. Unless that title goes to:

My Feet Are Killing Me: You know, last year I joked around that TLC was following the success of Dr. Lee with a proctological show called Dr. Poop Digger.* Well, I was off by an inseam. My Feet Are Killing Me is about the practice of podiatrists who come face-to-foot with some of the most alien-looking appendages to ever appear at the end of a leg. I mean, most people's feet are pretty awful to begin with, but this is a horror show.

Untold Stories of the ER: Another TLC series, this one features what the title says -- stories from the emergency rooms of various hospitals that are in some way pretty shocking. They're shown as narrative by the doctors but also with vivid reenactments, and feature ER fun like people with large objects stuck in them, people infested with a variety of parasites, people with various bits cut off... The word rectum comes up more often than it does on Grey's Anatomy, I guarantee.

Worst Cooks in America: The only Food Network show about disgusting food, this competition pits really bad cooks against one another to try to become the best of the bunch. For the true diet factor, you want to come in on the early episodes of a season, where the contestants demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction and revulsion that they belong on this show. By the later episodes people have gotten better, and the worst have been weeded out.

Bizarre Foods: Andrew Zimmern is the host of this Travel Channel show, which makes him the grown-up version of the kid that would eat a bug for a dollar. As a profile on Fox put it, "He’s eaten putrefied shark in Iceland, tree grubs in Peru and even 'horse rib and rectum sausage' in Kazakhstan," which makes this show another contender for the "More Rectums Than Grey's Anatomy" honor. Unless his enjoyment of Samoan coral worms makes you want to see if you can order up some via DoorDash, you'll find this show a food turn-off.

Live PD: A&E's Live PD is like a real-time version of the classic show COPS, and based on the same premise, that following police officers as they deal with punks, lowlifes, slobs, wankers, perverts, and creeps is entertaining. Most of the time nothing disgusting is shown, besides the rank abasement that humankind may achieve. Still, rat- and roach-infested trailers don't stimulate the appetite. Nor does hearing the fifth guy in a row tell officers that he didn't know how the pipe got on him and these are his friend's pants and he doesn't know his friend's name.

My 600-Lb. Life: An agonizing program about people in the deepest throes of addictive eating who seek help from Dr. Younan Nowzardian, a specialist in these matters who doesn't take any crap. He deals with his patients with sympathy, but he treats them like the addicts they are, knowing that the slightest allowance on his part will doom them to a helpless, miserable life. You can't help but root for these people, but my God, seeing them struggle can make you hate food entirely.

Skin Tight: You know what? We're just going to change the name of TLC to TDC -- The Diet Channel. Skin Tight is a sort of sequel to My 600-Lb. Life, as people who lose a tremendous amount of weight have to deal with the sagging, leftover skin. It is not pretty. You feel for these folks and you never want to become one of them. So maybe skip the Chips Ahoy tonight.

🤮🤮🤮

That ought to disgust the desire for food out of anyone. But just in case it doesn't, you can always turn to the Internet. There you can watch such enlightening films as people on TikTok eating cereal out of one another's mouths.

Hell, now I think I have to skip lunch.

💣💣💣

* Just wanted to point out that I had another joke show on that list called Mythsploders, a follow-up to the long-running Mythbusters, that was just focused on blowing things up. Well, former cast member and all-around good guy Tory Belleci is now starring in The Explosion Show on the Science Channel, just focused on blowing things up. I am a true prophet.

New year, new who?

Everyone says change is good. Until he or she has to make a change. Then change sucks eggs.

New Year's is a time we are willing to face the idea of change a little better than most. 

The thing is, as we look over our lives, we're willing to admit that yes, things have to change. Things are not right. So then we take out our pens and notebooks and get to work:

Resolutions for ME
Lose fifty thirty weight
Quit smoking
Take up running
Try yoga
Clear out garage
Remove comical facial hair/nose hair/ear hair
Clean house thoroughly once every three four six months

But then we say, hey, it's not all our fault! Maybe we do need to make some changes... and so do others.

Resolutions for SPOUSE
Lose twenty-three pounds
Bring grocery bill down to about forty dollars a month
Clean out all the old crap she doesn't even want around here (self not included)
Learn a 4th and 5th recipe
Stop nagging me

Resolutions for BOSS
No more passive aggression -- or for that matter, aggressive aggression
No firings or layoffs in 2019
Stop nagging me

Resolutions for CAT
Hairballs: Outside
Give up scratching furniture
Keep mice out of cellar -- mice are not collectibles
Stop looking at me all judgey

Resolutions for BROTHER-IN-LAW
Get off sofa
Get some real clothes
Get job
Get your own food
Get out of my house
Realize that "herb connoisseur" is not an actual job
Stop complaining about being nagged

Resolutions for RETAIL CLERKS/HELP LINE WORKERS
Smile once in a while; it is not fatal
Learn the difference between "helping" and "not helping at all"

Resolutions for CONGRESSMAN/SENATOR/OTHER ELECTED YAHOOS
Leave office and go get real work for a while
Look in mirror every morning and say "I am not that big a deal"
Stop spending my money like it comes from a magical fairy pipeline

Resolutions for RANDOM PEOPLE
Learn how to signal turns, lane changes, and come to a complete stop

Sometimes we never get past the "others" stage. In fact, once we think about all the ways others need to get their acts together, we start looking good by comparison.

Maybe we don't need to change that much after all! Hey, 2019 is going great so far!

Post-Christmas.

I feel like I ate the 12 dishes of Polish Christmas, the Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes, a Thankgiving dinner, and maybe a Seder in there somewhere as well.

It was a great feast, as befits the greatest birthday in the world. But man, my New Year's resolution is set. Fortunately that means I have a few days to eat all the leftovers. Although today, I will eat nothing but dietary fiber and water. (Note: This decision may be rescinded by lunchtime.)

Aside from all that, I don't have much to share with you today. Santa was good to me, better than I deserve, and I hope he was to you, too. For the first time in maybe a decade we did not all gather 'round the tube to watch A Christmas Story; just never had the time. Add that to list with The Year Without a Santa Claus and Prancer and the George C. Scott Christmas Carol as Christmas faves we just never got to this year. No, the holiday is not over, and we keep the decorations up until Epiphany, but once it's December 26 the likelihood of seeing these videos drops precipitously. I guess there's always Rudolph's Shiny New Year.

Besides, I gotta get back to work. I have a project due Monday that could take anywhere between two and twenty hours; haven't cracked it open so I don't know yet. My wife's on a well-earned vacation, or at least staycation.

Best wishes for you on Boxing Day, and if you didn't get what you wanted yesterday, I hope you will today. See ya tomorrow!

Nog nog noggin' on heaven's door.

One of the Christmas traditions on my checklist is to enjoy some good ol'-fashioned nonalcoholic eggnog out of the dairy case. I'm not married to the stuff, but I still like a glass of a fine December morning.

This pint bottle, from ice cream company Turkey Hill, fit the bill, rich and spiced up right. 

People will generally sniff at such things, as they do fruitcake, saying it's plebeian, typical American baby food, and it's not real eggnog, which you have to make from scratch, beating the hell out of the eggs and adding copious amounts of rum.

Well, nuts to that. Very rarely have I encountered real eggnog, most memorably at an official college administration party, where it was offered in two punch bowls: With or Without. (Booze.) I tried some of both, wondering what the real deal would be like, and found it thin, only moderately spiced, and not exciting. I confess that they had whipped it up in the cafeteria, so it may not have been really top-drawer stuff. 

But I like my dairy-case eggnog, and the other morning I cracked open the pint shown and had a gulp. Then some more. And some more. I knew it was an indulgence, because I saw on the label that it was 190 calories. I drank it anyway. Then I thought, Uh-oh, maybe that was two servings of 190 calories each? I just had 380 calories!

No. The pint bottle was supposed to be four servings. I had just drunk 760 calories.

This is the label from the half-gallon-size Turkey Hill bottle, found online; you see that a serving size is just 1/2 cup, and nutritional info is based on that, not counting anything you spiked it with. That one big drink I had contained more than 30% of my recommended caloric intake for the day, 88% of my recommended cholesterol, 100% of my saturated fat, and 120% of my sugars. And I even hadn't had breakfast yet. And I was going to a big Christmas lunch that day.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine who also loves the spurned treats of eggnog and fruitcake, and he said, "Yeah, it's basically like drinking heavy cream." (To be fair, a pint of heavy cream has more than 1,600 calories -- but his point is taken.)

I skipped breakfast; I didn't need it. I felt like I'd eaten a stack of pancakes. Maybe those Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes from iHop. People whose doctors recommend they use Ensure should look into eggnog. If you're having a problem keeping your weight up, I have the solution.

The incomparable Mark Steyn, who as a singer is one hell of a writer, recorded a song of his own composition (with Kevin Amos) called "Runnin' on Eggnog," which I mentioned on this page a couple of Christmases ago. The song is a holiday tradition here, but I have to wonder how anyone does any runnin' on eggnog, even the nonalcoholic stuff.

Nappin' on eggnog, now that I can comprehend. Blarg.

New job opportunities.

The economy is buzzing along and unemployment has plummeted. People who told us we were supposed to be thrilled with never, ever having a robust economy again have now had to find other things to scold us over. While it's true that there are some jobs that are not as much in demand as they once were, like buggy-whip manufacturer, hamster wrangler, and creme-filling injector, there are still plenty of sensational opportunities for people with drive and energy. Here are five on the hot list.

Fruit Dot Whacker

Be the guy who puts the little pricing code stickers on each little piece of fruit in the supermarket. Great opportunities for those who have an instinctive eye for the location of bruises that can be covered. Future technology shows promise; it may be possible before long to put a pricing dot on individual blueberries. Start training now and harvest the rewards!

Seasonal Pop Rocks Developer

Pop Rocks aren't just for breakfast anymore--an insatiable public, showing the daring that made bungee-cord jumping a thrilling pursuit for .000000001% of the population, will always want to test its mettle against the deadly Pop Rock. And it's even better in season-appropriate flavors! Join the team that's working to create varieties like Love Explosion (Valentine's Day), Krazy Fireworks (4th of July), Spooky Boom (Halloween), Treez a-poppin' (Arbor Day), Flip Your Whig (Presidents Day), and more! Great openings for young folks with strong teeth.

Strange Hair Cultivator

The Baby Boomers have been the cultural machines of our society, and that's still the case even as they hobble into dotage. Watch as those rockin' geezers take on the challenge of ear hair, nose hair, mole hair, back hair, and hair sprouting in other weird places as we age! Yes sir, the generation that's putting the Hip in Hip Fracture is looking for ways to make strange hair fashionable--that's where you come in! Curl! Bob! Weave! Perm! See your designs come to life in this growth industry!

Fat Guy Lifter

Hey, you muscular young types! More than a third of us ages twenty and up are obese, and those stairs aren't getting any flatter! Lifting fat people up onto things is likely to be a goldmine in the years ahead. There are many, many things that fat people need to get up onto--the SUV seat, the spike heels, the second-floor landing, the buffet line--and you can help! Fat Guy Lifters can make all kinds of cash, and best of all, when you get the inevitable hernia, you can go on disability for the rest of your life! So start shoving your fat friends around now and get in shape to boost your fortunes!

Hit Victim

Want to make a change in society? Want to get half the nation to call you a hero for doing nothing? It's so easy! Crybullies have never been in so much demand. Just think of someone you knew twenty, thirty, forty years ago, someone who has risen to a place of prominence, and weepingly tell a tale of some horrible sexual misconduct by this person in the past. Watch as the Twitter mobs take up your banner to destroy this person's career, home, and family! "But Fred, lying is wrong, isn't it?" you ask. I say, if the person has risen to a place of prominence he must have screwed someone over; why not you? "But Fred, how do I monetize slander?" you ask. Are you kidding? I smell book deal just thinking about it! (Straight white males need not apply; all other eligible.) 

Fat.

It's been thirty years since Weird Al Yankovic released Even Worse, the album best known for its parody of Michael Jackson's song "Bad." And say what you want about Michael Jackson, he was comfortable enough to allow Al to do parodies of his songs, unlike Prince and George Michael, who refused. Jackson was a big fan of Al's. He may have also wanted the money that came from a hit parody royalties; Purina Giraffe Chow can run up quite the grocery bill, you know.

When you admire the work of a musician or band, you always tend to prefer the stuff that gets less airplay. You'll have heard the hits ten thousand times; your interest lies in the B-sides, the instrumental fillers, the stuff that never gets on the radio or in the supermarket. "Sure, 'I'm Too Sexy' is a great song," you'll say, with a little scoff insinuated, "but to get the real measure of Right Said Fred, you need to listen to their rendition of 'Cherry Cherry' or 'Fräulein Wunderbar.'" And then you wonder why you don't have any friends.

On that note, I've always preferred Al's original songs to his parodies. "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota," "Generic Blues," "One More Minute," "Nature Trail to Hell," and what should have charted as a country song, "Good Enough for Now," are among his many excellent songs. And I'd like to thank Basil of IMAO for reminding me of the James Tayloresque "You Don't Love Me Anymore," which, as the penultimate song on the album Off the Deep End, sets up a practical joke that totally got me.

Today, though, I'd like to mention "Fat," the big hit off the Even Worse album and a takeoff of Jackson's "Bad." Yep, this is the one with the fat suit video, where Al became Fat Alfred. Apparently it's tricky to dance in one of those things: "I would turn and the suit would turn like a half-second later," he said.

While the video is terrific, I always admired the way Al put this song together. The lyrics are outstanding in that they use a ton of fat jokes, some I didn't even know, and as a Family Size kid I knew a lot of them. By my count, in a song just over three and half minutes (with Jacksonian repeats and dance breaks) there are 16 fat zingers, not counting little bits of side business like "Ham on, ham on, ham on whole wheat, all right..."

You've got some fat classics there, like: "When I sit around the house, I really sit around the house" and "all by myself I'm a crowd" and "Down at the beach... I'm the only one who gets a tan." And there are less famous ones, like "My shadow weighs forty-two pounds" and "When you're only havin' seconds, I'm have twenty-thirds."

And then you have improved versions of classics. "Got more chins than a Chinese phone book" is made into the slicker (and rhymier) "The pavement cracks when I fall down / I've got more chins than Chinatown." "Too fat to see his feet" is not much of a joke, but "When I go to get my shoes shined I gotta take their word" is, and it rhymes with the previous line.

It's not as easy as it seems to write words to a melody that have proper rhythm, length, and emphasis. Lyricists are often dismissed as the "words guys," a practice that goes back at least to the opera, where the jamoke who writes the book is nobody while the man who composes the music is a titan. But it's hard to make words scan right to someone else's melody, and to do it while cramming in every joke you can is an achievement.

The best thing about it is that by using the same brag approach as Jackson's "Bad," it's the singer who is obese, and he's proud of it. "My zippers bust, my buckles break, I'm too much man for you to take"; "the whole world knows I'm fat and I'm proud, just tell me once again who's fat." If the song had been outwardly directed, ragging on someone for being obese, it would have been cruel.

So we salute Al today for the thirtieth anniversary of one of his greatest parodies. Personally, as a writer and editor, my all-time favorite Al parody has to be "Word Crimes" (awesome video below), but that's another story.

Naaawwwww....

What I expect to hear on Friday.

A seasonal induglence.

How many times do I have to tell everybody?

HIRE AN EDITOR AND YOU WON'T LOOK STUPID!

At least hire a proofreader.

This was a flyer I received in the mail from CVS, the Pride of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, #7 on the Fortune 500 list as of last June, the drugstore giant that pulled in more than $177.5 billion in sales (according to Hoovers). And yet with all that dough, all that moolah, all that Social Security money in their Scrooge McDuck-like vaults, they couldn't cough up fifty bucks to get a professional editor to look at this so they could spell INDULGE correctly.

This is a black eye for you, CVS, and I am doubly disappointed since just a few months back, in January, I mentioned how proud I was that you could spell stationery properly (meaning the paper stuff).

And yet I have had to take you to the woodshed before, CVS. In 2014, when I was posting on my old (now defunct and inaccessible) blog, you stopped selling cigarettes because (you said) you were so concerned about our health. I called you on your hypocrisy, on your attempt to get grace on the cheap. Not that I smoked at that time or since, not for quite a few years now, but I pointed out that you continue to sell candy, all the time, every day; there's a section of the store that's just candy, the seasonal aisle always has candy, and of course the checkout area is candy out the bazooty. (Never mind the snack aisle, which is very cookie-centric.) And I wondered if you were willing to cut off all that revenue, even though diseases of obesity are going to kill far more of us than diseases of smoking, and now our fatness is "astronomical," and even more out of control than it was in 2014. Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer.... Well, CVS? Are you going to chase out the lardbuckets the way you chased out the puffers?

AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN PAY SOME POOR EDITOR A FEW DOLLARS TO SPELL A FLYER RIGHT, A FLYER BY THE WAY THAT WAS ADVERTISING CANDY?

Now, about your complicity in the rampant and deadly opioid drug epidemic that you're only just now addressing...

$177.5 billion and they can't hire a proofreader. Sheesh.

Why ARE we so fat?

Every time you check the health news you hear something else connected to how we in America, and really all over the world, are turning into big fat blobs. The news is usually delivered to us by a healthy, skinny person who is either disgusted by our blubber or is just saddened by the whole thing.

Most of the news is about the consequences of being a nation of Two-Ton Tonys and Tanyas -- diabetes, heart disease, broken furniture, etc. But sometimes they like to ask the question: Why are all you people so damned fat, anyway?

When we go to get our shoes shined, we gotta take their word.

So, why are we?

The answers usually come in two forms:

1) We're too dumb to know how much we're eating, too lazy to cook for ourselves, too useless to roll off the sofa and do a dad-blasted push-up.

2) Evil food corporations are filling us full of bad, fattening food, larding up their wallets while they lard up our waistlines.

You notice that neither of these forms speak well of us, and the second casts the usual dark cloud over our captains of industry as well. This is a dark world, says the news media. Dark and stupid and fat.

Here are some specific culprits I have seen blamed many times:

We're too rich -- In past eras only the wealthy could afford to be chubs. Sugar was pricey. Now we're so rich, everyone can be a blubber butt! For the first time in human history, our poor people are fatter than our wealthy people!

We're too stressed --  No one has time to go to the gym, make a healthy meal, take up a sport. We're never off duty and we have to grab our meals as we can.

We're too convenienced -- We don't walk anywhere if we can avoid it; we drive. We don't swing an ax; we pull the cord on the chain saw. We don't push the lawn mower; we ride it. We don't wring our laundry; we let the washing machine do it. We don't have to get out of the chair to look something up in the encyclopedia; we use our phone. We're like the Earth refuges in Wall-E. It's amazing we can even take a dump on our own anymore.

We're too easily led -- The moment we see a Carl Jr.'s advertisement we go running out to get a hamburger the size of our head. Restaurants compete by giving us ever-larger servings and we eat it all because it's there.

We're mentally screwed over by poisons -- High-fructose corn syrup makes us crave sugar; artificial sweeteners make us crave sugar; sugar makes us crave more sugar -- we are just slaves to our stupid brain impulses, triggered by chemicals, with no will of our own.

My take is: Who knows? Maybe it's a combination of all this stuff. I can tell you that obesity is not just something we invented last week. Health sanitariums (like Battle Creek), promoting high fiber and low fat, are Victorian era stuff. Weight Watchers is 54 years old. The famous 1928 "Reach for a Lucky instead of a Sweet" campaign for Lucky Strike was a co-opt of an 1891 campaign to "Reach for a Vegetable instead of a Sweet" (Pinkham's Vegetable Compound).  

But I would also add a couple of other things to the mix, things that may be specific to our culture as it is now.

1) No one likes being lectured. Healthy people are seen not just as health nuts but as abrasive scolds. The rest of us may see fitness as a desirable state, but not a state of grace. Condescension makes us irritable. And sorry, Kale Gals, we don't believe you are purely motivated by our welfare. You're either looking to being the next big weight-loss guru, or you think the government should pay for everyone's healthcare and you don't see why my Twinkie diet should (ergo) cost you money, or you're just disgusted by all the sweaty whales you have to endure every day. Nannyism is not just anti-freedom, it's annoying as hell.

2) We really don't move enough anymore and that's only going to get worse. Our forebears used up calories just doing the dumbest things -- going to the store, beating the rugs, going to the can, hitching old Dobbin to the shay -- they didn't have to go to spinning classes.

3) Conquest of disease helps us live longer, and fat often comes with age, For hormonal reasons, lack of activity due to pain, and other reasons, people tend to put on weight as they age. Since many folks who would have died young in 1917 from infection or measles or the like, have lived to be old, they've skewed the population fatter.

4) When more people are fat, it's easier to be fat. This is pretty important -- people will tend to self-regulate appetites to remain in the good graces of their peers. When everyone's fat, it makes it safe to get fat. Fat parents have fat children; when half the class is fat there's little impetus for the other kids to stay slim. Herd immunity to shaming, I guess.

5) We don't believe in anything and we have no will to live. Um...

The last one is the one that scares me. I really see the main problem with our health and weight as being connected to our largest problem, that we in the West have lost all cultural confidence and are devolving into smaller and smaller tribes of angrier and angrier nutcases. We are the bulwark of civilization, but we don't believe it and we don't care. So why not have dessert? Why get up early and go running? So maybe I can drop one pant size after months of effort? So I can live another five years at the old, rotten end of my life? So I can live to see the wedding of my child whom I never bothered to have? So I can be more spiritually enriched by denying my appetites and get closer to the God I do not believe in? Never mind. Pass the gravy. Maybe I can pour enough to fill that hole in my soul.

Our obesity crisis can only end if we become connected to and confident in our culture, in my opinion, and learn to want to live again. We need belief in things bigger than ourselves, not gimcrack self-esteem like some life participation trophy. People who believe in themselves and their community want to live, but how may of us fit that description now? All the cheerleaders with all the kale pompoms in the world won't make a difference if we don't care about ourselves or anything else. And being fat is the least of our problems then.

Put the lime in the do-doughnut...

This summer, our dealer has a new and powerful drug to lead us to perdition. I am of course referring to Dunkin' Donuts and their seasonal doughnut selections:

Now, you may have noticed that I haven't been updating you as much lately with all the garbage I eat, largely because of late I have been trying to cut down on the crap and load up on the (ugh) healthy foods. And I've lost a little weight. And so no WAY was I going to try one of those silly Lemon Croissant Donuts. No, SIR! Not ME! That's ridiculous! Nuh-UH!

I got the Key Lime Square instead.

As fond as I am of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and of sweet things, I have had issues with some of their specialty items in the past. The cheesecake squares were weird. The Chips Ahoy! Creme doughnut was too sweet even for me, and the spooky pumpkin doughnut was even worse. But the Blueberry Cobbler Croissant Donut was good, not like chewing a mouthful of sugar. Could they have been catching on to the too-sweet problem?

I think so! Much to my surprise, the filling in the Key Lime Square, while having a good lime flavor, was not limeade-sweet. They seem to be relying on the icing on top to provide the sugar kick on its own. On the whole, it was a pleasant, albeit still indulgent, treat.

Good work, Dunkin!

Of course, now I have to decide if I dare sneak in that Lemon Croissant Donut after all....

The end of Pig Fats Kelly.

Today we remember James "Pig Fats" Kelly, one of the most influential blues singers of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Mr. Kelly, of course, was one of the most recognized voices out of Alabama, that, admittedly, being a pretty small group. His nickname, "Pig Fats" or "Pigs," was often said to come from the fact that his family was so poor they could only afford to buy pig's fat from the butcher, which his mother would serve on brioche or scones. The story was disputed later by his cousin, Archibald "Twinkle Toes" Kelly, who said that "he got yclept 'Pig Fats' because he weighed three hundred pounds by his senior year in high school."

Either way, "Pig Fats" was unquestionably a powerful and influential blues singer, who played in clubs all over the south and eventually throughout the north, except in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. (The citizens of Wilkes-Barre just told him, "Please, keep rambling through. Thanks.") His many blues songs were renowned for their depth of feeling. Numbers like "Morbid, Morose Monday," "Life Is Horrible," "Everything Is Miserable," "Agony Is My Friend," "I Wish I Was Dead," "I'm Going to Hang Myself with the Extension Cord," "My Head Is in the Oven," and "Moribundt Cake" quickly established his reputation. During a show in San Diego he once made SEAL Team Two leave a jazz club in tears.

"Pig Fats" recorded two albums in those early days, Can't Get Up and My World Is Hell, and things were really beginning to come together for him. Sadly, though, like so many blues artists, Mr. Kelly had his Achilles' heel, a substance that threatened his career and changed the course of his life. This, for "Pig Fats," was the turning point.

Well, shut my mouth.

So I can stop eating stuff like this. 

The funny thing is, I never had a real s'more until a year or so ago. Never went camping. Never went out in the Winnebago to pester nature. I was a big-city Cub Scout, so we got merit badges for removing bullets, swiping hubcaps, killing rats, and getting bagmen to turn informant*. I'd had s'more-flavored cereals and whatnot, but not an actual graham cracker/chocolate/melted marshmallow sandwich. And when I finally had one, I was pleased to say that the real thing beat the imitators. 

I guess I was looking for that s'more flavor, but, knowing I could only get it from the real deal, I decided to get a fake one that was jacked up with a little something extra. And that something extra, of course, is caramel. Because a s'more isn't sweet enough. 

All of which leads me to some questions:

1) It s'more the singular for s'mores? Or is s'mores also the singular? Like moose and moose. Or algae and alga? S'mores and s'ma? Russell Stover thinks you can have one s'mores. Maybe they're right.

2) Russell Stover is gas station-quality chocolate, I know. Their slogan could be "Helping Desperate Husbands Since 1923." My question here is: You didn't get your mother a box from the supermarket for Mother's Day, did you? Uuuuhhh... we'll just forget we had this conversation.

3) What did the Russell Stover Caramel S'mores taste like? 

Here's the inside:

And after a taste:

You know something? It was pretty good. The chocolate was non-to-die-for, but it was definitely chocolate, and this was a thick, generous serving. Graham crackers and marshmallow were only average, but really, how often does one encounter artisan graham cracker or marshmallow outside of the major cities? Anyway, the classic s'more(s) is made of Hershey's milk chocolate, which is a sentimental fave but not the highest quality chocolate around. 

So I was satisfied with this item, although the caramel was kind of lost in the other flavors anyway. If you must buy Russell Stover, I would recommend something in the s'mores line. And since Dad doesn't care about the pretty box, you could buy a sackful of these for Father's Day and he'll be thrilled. And if he doesn't like them, you can send them to me. 

----

*Not really, but I never went camping either. 

Coconut and Peanuts.

Back in the early days of Peanuts, Charlie Brown et al could often be found enjoying a sack full of mixed candy. Chocolate creams were the fave... but coconut was the antithesis of all things enjoyable.

I too for many years found coconut to be the enemy of good candy. I could endure it to get to the chocolate in an Almond Joy or Mounds or some such, but it required a manly, rugged endurance.

However, I find that I've come to like coconut sometimes. So much so that when I spotted this unusual treat up here at the Tractor Supply Company ("Making Southern Things Acceptable to Northerners Since 1938"), I knew I had my next episode of Things I Should Not Eat.

Yes, it's the poorly photographed, Neapolitan ice cream inspired Supreme Coconut Bar!

The Supreme Coconut Bar is the gift to the world from Macon, Georgia's Crown Candy Corporation, chosen just days ago as a Georgia "Face of Manufacturing." Crown claims to be one of the largest manufacturers of coconut candy worldwide.

How was it? Well, pace Charlie Brown and Snoopy, it was good. The flavors were not strong, but nor were they phony and weird, despite the use of artificial flavors and colors. The coconut was mild, well prepared, and smooth. I would indeed buy this candy again.

So there you have it: Coconut candy is okay! Anything with enough sugar in it has a chance in my book, anyhow.