A Slight Delay

Supermarkets try too hard. You can’t walk into a supermarket anymore that doesn’t have a full selection of “Home-Cooked Meals”: hermetically sealed roasted chicken, baked hams in little plastic coffins, and ribs sulking in oversweetened barbecue sauce.

One day, I got to thinking. Why not take the next step, and have a potluck aisle? You could have everybody in the neighborhood bring something, and sell it all on consignment. There’d be aisles of steam tables piled with goulash, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and all the stuff that someone found in the back of some Betty Crocker cookbook, some of it edible, some not. After all, what potluck is complete without at least one or two dishes that can be identified only by their dental records, or by some kind of culinary DNA analysis? (more…)

Science has made great strides in prenatal and neonatal research, and things have the potential to get interesting. For instance, it’s only a matter of time before we see a modification of the common “Parental Advisory–Explicit Content” stickers found on so many CDs. Building on pseudoscientific quack Don Campbell’s research on the effects of music on unborn and newborn babies, a bill to relabel CDs will be introduced. The current sticker will be replaced by, “Prenatal Advisory–Explicit Content.” It will be argued from both sides that hearing obscenity will have a deleterious effect on the unborn. Using the same labirynthine logic with which they’ve defined the abortion debate, the GOP will argue that the unborn, though they lack the facilities to comprehend what they’re hearing, could be corrupted by the content of the music; the Democrats, of course, will fall in line behind the GOP for fear of losing support on a populist issue in an election year. (more…)

This being an election year, we’re reminded constantly that somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 million Americans have no health insurance. An additional 30 million people (give or take a few mil) are temporarily without health insurance in the course of a given year. Mind you, this doesn’t mean that nobody’s getting sick, it just means we can’t afford to.

And how, exactly, are the uninsured going to pay for anything from hospital visits to critical care? You see ads for hospitals from time to time, about how they’re so advanced, about their great strides in neonatal care, cardiac medicine and oncology… it’s like they’re rattling off the features on a car. “Do you have 99 dollars and a job? You may qualify for health care! Try the new 2009 Pinebrook Hospital. Preferred patients get 4.9% financing with only 150 dollars down.” Before you know it, they’ll be offering lease options on artificial hearts. What the hell, once you kick over, someone else’ll get it.

And like everything else that’s financed, they’ll find ways to repo the stuff if you fall behind on your payments. You’ll wake up one morning to two enormous guys holding you down while a third cuts out your corneas. Your female coworkers will come in with their faces saggy and their breasts two cup sizes smaller: “Liz missed two installments on her implants.”

At least there wouldn’t be the long waits for transplants. Just go to the hospital and some guy with a cheap jacket and a combover will tell you about this week’s livers. “This one’s only had two previous owners. The last guy had a bit of a drinking problem, but it still works like a charm.” They’d even make sure it had that new organ smell.

When Gary Numan sang, “Here in my car, I feel safest of all,” he probably wasn’t singing about the smartCar. This reeeeeeeeeeeeealy tiny jalopy has been available for years in Europe, and it’s finally getting a full roll-out on these shores.

The $11k-plus car is the result of a partnership between Mercedes and Swatch (seriously). I guess that means that if you can’t find a parking space, you can take a band out of your glove compartment, attach it to the car, and just wear it on your wrist. While the design may be innovative and earth-friendly (both, no doubt, good things), it doesn’t strike me as the safest thing on the road; as was recently pointed out to me, it’s probably not the first thing you’d want to drive down the New Jersey Turnpike among the 18-wheelers. It makes the Mini Cooper look like an Abrams tank; the overall design scheme would seem to have been “coffin with a transmission.”

My grandfather was a bit old-fashioned, and we’d get reminders once in a while, like when he met my friend Phil.

“So, Bill. What’s your last name?”
“Yurchuk.”
“Bill Deerchuck. What kinda name is that?”
“Oh, it’s Russian.”
“You don’t LOOK Russian.”
“Well, I’m half Russian. My mom’s Puerto Rican.”

“Oh.” Long pause, then: “Well. Nothing wrong with them…. They’re good people. Good, fine, people…” And you can tell that something in him is telling him he’s dug himself a nice, deep hole. “Very hard-working.” Phil and I, meantime, know that if either one of us looks at the other, we’re both gonna lose it.

He was also an old-school Catholic. You’d have thought that the Catholic Church was a travel agency, and all those church visits were racking up frequent flyer miles. And if, for some reason, you needed a reminder of that fact, you only had to look at his Buick.

Some people are happy enough just to put one of those Jesus fish on the trunk, or slap a bumper sticker on. Grandpa had rosary beads hanging off the rearview mirror, a St. Christopher medal on the dash, a saint or two fixed to the dashboard with some kind of adhesive, a bottle of holy water in the little caddy, a little bible in the glove compartment… that car looked like a rolling botanica. And if you ever sat in the car when he drove, you knew why he needed all that stuff. Picture a New York City cabbie in slow motion: all the bobbing and weaving and cursing, but without the punctuality. He’d be talking to his beads as he went, too, so the typical ride went something like this:

“Our Father, who art–SLOW DOWN! Ah, ya sonofabitch. Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy–ah, shit! name…”

And you’d be praying, too, but not for the same reason he was. To this day, I think the first joyful mystery is that we always got where we were going in one piece.

WASHINGTON (AP): A source close to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed widespread rumors of a coming toast shortage. Urgent pleas have been lodged with the Toast Producing and Exporting Countries (TPEC), whose members are expected to hold an emergency summit in Yemen (motto: “White or Wheat?”), during which solutions are to be discussed, and ways found to keep prices low at the toaster.

In the meantime, the United States Department of Agriculture has recommended toast rationing, especially in urban centers, retirement communities, and truck stops, where recent toast consumption has far outstripped the rates of both import and production.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke does not expect that the shortage of toast will further dampen the currently bearish market. President Bush, speaking at a press conference earlier today, sought to quell consumers’ fears, alluding to America’s 257-billion bushel stockpile of emergency surplus toast, held in reserve on a military base in Arizona, whose hot, dry climate makes it ideal for toast storage.

Another letter, sent after the one below:

Mr. Wetauba,
 
It is with great and sincere regret that I read this missive on the loss of  your dear client. It is with further regret, however, that I must decline your generous offer.
 
Even a cursory inquiry, you see, would reveal that my credit is somewhat less than Sterling. It is, in fact–in the going financial parlance–something closer to “rust.” The road to this unfortunate set of circumstances is long, circuitous, and probably dull to the uninitiated. Therefore, I will lay it out in detail. Someone of your financial experience and acumen, I’m confident, cannot but be impressed. (more…)

I use Hotmail, the filtering on which is generally halfway decent. That’s a good thing, usually, but one side effect is that I don’t get those Nigerian letters anymore. If you’ve ever taken a class, or read a book, on creative writing, you know that they’re big on “writing prompts,” ranging from traditional exercises to things that could almost pass for Zen koans; those letters were great writing prompts. Here’s a reply that I wrote to one of them:

Mr. Oko,

I’m so sorry, but I’ve been burned so many times in the past giving to lost causes. I sent something to the order of seventy-five thousand dollars for hunger relief in Ethiopia, and they kept starving. Same with the Biafrans, back when aid to Biafra was all the rage. I’ve given to the Rotarians, the Moose Lodge (only to find out that the closest they get to a moose is the one over the fireplace; and here I thought they were helping those poor animals. The bastards). Even donated a substantial sum of money for a friend’s breast augmentation, because I knew it would make him happy… he changed his mind after others had also chipped in no small fortune for the hormones and the rest of the surgery. You can imagine our disillusion. (more…)

I really don’t like Saint Patrick’s Day. There, I said it, I feel better.

And I’m Irish. Which is probably one reason I don’t like Saint Patrick’s Day. Maybe it’s the hundreds of people wearing shirts, buttons, badges, hats, glasses, lounge pants and scarves that say, “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” Maybe it’s the green ice cream, pancakes, beer, et cetera. Or maybe it’s the fact that every third person you see uses the day as an excuse to get ridiculously drunk, ‘cause, you know, it’s the “Irish” thing to do.

On second thought, maybe it’s the fact that people insist on asking why I’m not “dressed” for the holiday, why I’m not piss-drunk, and why I turn my nose up at any foodstuffs that have been dyed the same color as the Incredible Hulk. I’m not the politically correct type, but it sticks in my craw that a bunch of people have reduced Irishness to a bunch of tired stereotypes.

So I’ll chill at home, put on the Dubliners and the Pogues loud enough to wake the dead, read some Yeats, and have myself a nice pint of Guinness… the proper kind that looks like 10W40, thank you very much. And if anyone asks me why I’m not wearing green, why my stout is that lovely brown, or if I would please turn down If I Should Fall from Grace with God, I will tell them, in no uncertain terms, to kiss my Irish ass.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Okay, it’s rant time. At least once a month, I get email from someone who’s so frantic about something, they had to tell all 3,427 people in their address book, and they want everyone to know that it’s imperative that they warn everyone they know, immediately-by smoke signal, if necessary-about some impending threat or other. Some of them have even followed up with phone calls to make sure that I got the email, and seem genuinely surprised that I deleted it without forwarding it.

This month’s suspect is a lovely missive about how Madeline Murray O’Hare [sic] is trying to get religious broadcasting banned from the airwaves. There’s a petition, we’re told, circulated by James Dobson (that part may well be true; he’s turned indignation into a cottage industry). And CBS even yanked “Touched By An Angel” off the air for repeatedly using the word God! The bastards!

Okay, now let’s break this down rationally: I’m impressed, first of all, that Ms. O’Hair is trying to get much of anything banned anywhere these days. The famed atheist activist, y’see, was kidnapped and murdered in 1995. And “TBAA” was pulled in 2003, having had a healthy nine-year run. Say what you want about CBS, but I don’t think it took them that long to notice. Oh, and the House bill featured so prominently in the email? They’re only 33 years late, the bill having been introduced and failing to pass in 1975.

I know that people are generally well-intentioned. They see something about a computer virus that gives your laptop herpes when you check your email, and they want to make sure that you’re “protected.” All well and good. Except that I haven’t gotten a scaregram yet that actually had what’s elsewhere called “actionable intelligence.” Instead, it reads like it came from Fox News Channel, and is about as accurate. (more…)